"The Cursed: Dead Man's Prey"-- Korean horror movie review, part one

 

 Release Date: July 28, 2019   Length: 105 minutes    Director: Kim Yong-Wan

Main Cast: This is a spinoff from the 2020 Korean TV series which I haven't viewed. But this is a stand alone story and watching the drama wasn't needed but there were a few details that carried over from the series, there's supposed to be a season two soon.

Uhm Ji-Won as Im Jin-Hee.... Star of this film who is above and is a semi disgraced journalist, the reasons were mainly unknown and it was part of the TV drama. Jin-Hee was fired from her previous reporter's position and has now opened her own company called Urban Detective. She's the co-CEO of the company that's a news channel which mainly tracks mysterious cases. Jin-Hee has recently written a book titled "Hatred and Sorcery" which talked about her previous scandal, she's married to the next man.

Jung Moon-Sung as Sung-Joon.... The above's husband and until the end they didn't appear to be that close. He's the lead detective on the Seoul Metro Investigation Unit, Song-Joon walks with a limp and often uses a cane, the reason was probably discussed in the TV series. 

Jung Ji-So as So-Jin.... Young woman who is a female sorceress! She knows Jin-Hee well but disappeared over a year ago as So-Jin had been cursed, she's traveled to Japan and China to find a cure which was fruitless. However So-Jin isn't too badly infected as she can lead a normal life and did come to the rescue at the end of this film.

Lee Seol as Jessy.... New intern at the Urban Detective news channel, she'll be with the video unit but Jessy isn't what she appears to be.... someone risen from the dead?!

Kim In-Kwon as Kim Pil-Seong.... The co-CEO of Urban Detective who himself had been a detective for twenty years and still knows most currently on the force.

Oh Yoon-Ah as Byun Mi-Young.... Daughter of the below man who is the main director at Seungil Pharm. Mi-Young is the heir to her father's position and came so close to getting it in this movie. Not a lot of screen time until the end but it was an important role and she is quite the SNOB!

Jeon Gook-Hwan as Byun Seung-Ii.... Father of the above who founded the company with the next two men. Seungil Pharm is the whole key to the story as they've done some very shady things which led to many deaths.

Kwon Hae-Hyo as Lee Sang-In.... Director at Seungil Pharm and was second on the list to die of a curse but ended his life before that.

Jung Jae-Sung as Kim Min-Seop.... The third director at the company who was the first to die!

Park Chan-Woo as Park Woo-Chan.... As you notice his character's name is a play on his real one. He works at Urban Detective and is Jin-Hee's main assistant.

Nam Yeon-Woo as Yoo Jung-Hoon.... Detective on Sung-Joon's investigative team.

Go Gyu-Pil as Tak Jeong-Hoon.... College professor who is knowledgeable on the occults, especially ones from Indonesia where this curse originated.

 Few other characters but the above list is long enough! There's two other words I may use or aree in some of the screenshots. The first is Jaechul which appears to be the Korean word for those who have risen from the grave and at times can talk. The other is Dukun which is the Indonesian word for a Shaman, in this case it's for a medium who can bring certain dead bodies back to life.

 Movie's trailer

 

 Whew, that above took a while to write up and is often the hardest part of a review! When I review a drama or movie do give so many details on what took place, too many perhaps? But do leave quite a few minor things out which will happen in this review, try to give most of the main details and such to set things up if you do care to view a film. Bring that up for in the first 30-35 minutes so many details and info were thrown at us viewers, so much it was hard getting into the movie as I was trying to jot most of the info down. But it settled down after that and this turned out to be a fine movie but there was much more suspense/action than horror.

 One big positive about viewing these Korean films is I don't know much of the cast which means it's a good introduction for them if I want to check out their other works. The lead actress was Uhm Ji-Won who I've heard of but know so little about her. She was 43 in age when this film came out but she looked mighty fine in this film. Jung Ji-So too looked better than oki-doki and she's 23 in age so going to try checking out her things from the last few years. For movie reviews have two parts as one post would be too long and tiring to read at once. Took 110 screenshots so this first post will have the action up to the ~55th, the next post will continue on from there and will have my rating in that post. 

 That top screenshot was from the opening minute where a Zombie like creature bit and killed a man who was unnamed at the time. The cause of death was PSP toxins that's usually only found in Shellfish, that's baffled the investigative team at the Seoul Metro Police Office. Right after the creature bit this man who we found later on was named Kim it turned to stone and crumbled like rubble would! However enough of his body remained(second screenshot) and the police were able to identify this killer as someone named Hwang. But that's no help as this creature died.... three months ago! You'll be hearing so much more about these creatures as we go along as they are the main story. In the third screenshot is the film's main character Im Jin-Hee, she's a journalist who was disgraced in the TV series and not much of this movie had anything to do with the TV show. Jin-Hee had been fired from her reporting job and in this movie has opened up her own video news channel called Urban Detective. She's also written a book titled "Hatred and Sorcery" which she hopes will clear her name.

 Jin-Hee went on a radio show to plug the book, the fourth screenshot. During the show a call came through, the caller told the interviewer to shut up as he only wanted to talk to Jin-Hee. That was a good scene as that interviewer's arrogance was off the charts! This caller had info for Jin-Hee about that mysterious death the night before, at the time she had heard no mention of it. Jin-Hee quickly rushed back to her new company Urban Detective where a new intern was starting that day. She's in the fifth screenshot above and is named Jessy, she's a bit inept and the question will be is she human? This company was started by Jin-Hee who is the co-CEO, the other CEO is an older man named Pil-Seong and he has heard news of that mysterious murder. He was a detective for twenty years so still has some contacts in the force, they gave him all of the info and photos of the gruesome murder. Almost left this out which is that the caller claimed to be the murderer, he'll explain why in an interview with Jin-Hee which is why she had rushed back to the office to prepare for it. After reading up on the murder walking into her Urban Detective office was Sung-Joon and he was no ordinary detective. Sung-Joon is the husband of Jin-Hee and during this scene it didn't appear as though they were a happy couple.

 The paragraphs should get a bit shorter as we go along but so much was thrown at us in the first half hour as far as characters and details go. Sung-Joon walks with a limp and at times uses a cane, reason for his injury had to be from the TV series. Of course he was beyond irate that the details of the Zombie case had been leaked to Pil-Seong, in the top screenshot he's on the right. Too late to do anything about it but Sung-Joon was adamant that his wife would not be doing an interview with a killer! However Jin-Hee did convince him that his team had no other leads and this may be the only chance to find out what happened, Sung-Joon reluctantly agreed. In the second screenshot above is Jin-Hee's assistant Woo-Chan, not an important role but he does get a lot of screen time. The interview will be taking place at a hotel and will be streamed live on the Urban Detective news channel. As a new channel they're a bit unknown and rarely get over 10,000 viewers at once, but for this interview the total exceeded 100,000. Though Jin-Hee will be with a potential killer she should be safe enough according to Sung-Joon as there must be fifty police inside or around the hotel.

 We're at about the 25 minute mark, solid opening but the pace will soon become so frantic. Arriving on the scene was the above man Park and the police let him go by as his interview could be so key to solving this very mysterious murder. Park would only reveal his story to Jin-Hee as he feels she's someone who would dig hard for the truth. As you can see above Park has promised to kill a director of Seungil Pharm, not just one but all three directors! First would be Kim, then Lee and finally the main president Byun, Park also gave them the time of their impending deaths! He told the audience the company had done something very sinister and wants revenge on the company. However Park will spare everyone if the president Byun gives a sincere public apology, he'll let Jin-Hee decide if it's sincere enough. While this short interview was taking place the police did a quick background check on Park, he did work for Seungil Pharm at one time as a lab technician. There is a problem though.... Park died at least six months ago!!!! So he's another of what are known as Jaechauis, the Korean word for those that come back to life. The police quickly rushed the interview room but though dead(!) Park is extremely agile, within a matter of seconds he had a knife at Jin-Hee's throat!

 Like a Zombie a Jaechaui has come back to life and is also a bit brain dead, however a Jaechaui is so much more agile, stonger and can run like the wind. Back to the action and Park was leading Jin-Hee down a hallway with that knife to her throat, she's his only chance of escaping but does he want to flee? There was no way for the police to fire at Park with her so close to him, soon the pair made it to the elevator and is Jin-Hee's savior about to save the day? That's her husband Sung-Joon and he managed to squeeze onto the elevator just before the doors closed, not a wise decision. These Jaechaui creatures are extremely strong, with his lame leg Sung-Joon was no match and in a matter of seconds was beaten to a pulp but that wasn't the worst thing that will happen to him as you'll soon learn. Jin-Hee did pick up her husband's gun but never did fire it, like a Zombie can you kill a resurrected Jaechaui? Eventually the elevator did arrive on the first floor with an army of officers waiting but there's still no way they could shoot Park who still had Jin-Hee at knifepoint.

 There was no need for the police to take action as Park soon threw Jin-Hee to the side, in the fourth screenshot above you can see what took place. Like the previous Jaechaui Park's body became stone like, soon he was just a pile of pebbles and dirt! So a Jaechaui can pass themselves off as a human plus they're very powerful so how can one be defeated(?), their one main negative is that it appears they're controlled by someone such as a Shaman. But back at Seungil Pharm there's panic in the air, in the second to last screenshot is the director named Kim who Park said would be the first to die! The date of that will be tomorrow and he spilled out his guts to the rest of the board, can he be saved? If there are many more Jaechauis like Park then the answer is going to be NO! In the bottom screenshot is the daughter of the main president Byun, her name is Min-Young and she's next in line to be president. She told Kim not to worry but those were empty words, she and the rest of the board of execs knew what evil acts Seungil Pharm committed but not us viewers at this point. Min-Young's character was very important to the story though we didn't see all that much of her until the end. She is one ruthless and extremely arrogant woman who is about forty in age.

 Final segment for this post and the action really picks up. While she was being held captive Jin-Hee noticed some sort of tattoo or mark on the right wrist of Park, her and the police are clueless about these creatures so they visited the office of a so called Jaechaui expert, his name is Professor Tak who is in the top two screenshots. He's seen that mark before and it's a curse from Indonesia, why would a Korean man have it? Here's an important word which will be mentioned a few times in the next post, it's Dukun which is the Indonesian name for a Shaman or sorcerer. They can raise the dead and control them which is how these Jaechauis have been able to act somewhat like humans. How this Indonesian curse works is explained in the third and fourth screenshots. The other CEO of Urban Detective Pil-Seung had heard of Seungil Pharm recruiting subjects for their experiments and found the man who supplied the guinea pigs. His name was Hwan who was a gangster/loan shark but is now in prison. To make a long story short he suppled Seungil with one hundred subjects, ten were homeless Koreans and the other ninety were illegal immigrants from Indonesia, all 100 subjects died during this 'testing'.

So that's where the Indonesia angle comes in and to Jin-Hee it appears someone from that country is out to avenge the deaths of the ninety people. Much more on that in the next post but it's approaching the time where the Jaechaui Park said the director Kim would be killed. This was the best scene of the whole film and was it action packed!!!! The Dukun raising the dead can control more than one Jaechaui at a time, above you can see an army of them. They had assembled at the Seungil Pharm HQ and while the police were there they were no match for this large group of creatures who are so fast and powerful. Sung-Joon was Kim's protector and they had to flee the office building, soon there was a massive car chase in the middle of Seoul! What I thought was a tad humorous was how this army of Jaechauis was able to hijack a fleet of taxis and actually drive them better than a race car driver. Once again to make a long scene shorter the car Sung-Joon and Kim were in was eventually surrounded, the Jaechauis smashed their way in and as you can see above Kim was brutally killed, one director down and two to go! So that wraps up part one and the next post has the second half of this review which should be shorter. Plenty of screenshots up to this point and recommend viewing them to help you follow the story better.