View text source at Wikipedia
Hansel and Gretel | |
---|---|
Hangul | 헨젤과 그레텔 |
Revised Romanization | Henjelgwa Geuretel |
McCune–Reischauer | Henjelgwa Kŭret'el |
Directed by | Yim Pil-sung |
Written by | Kim Min-sook Yim Pil-sung |
Produced by | Choi Jae-won Seo Woo-sik |
Starring | Chun Jung-myung Eun Won-jae Shim Eun-kyung Jin Ji-hee |
Cinematography | Kim Ji-yong |
Edited by | Kim Sun-min |
Music by | Lee Byung-woo |
Distributed by | CJ Entertainment |
Release date |
|
Running time | 117 minutes |
Country | South Korea |
Language | Korean |
Box office | US$2,206,625[1] |
Hansel and Gretel is a 2007 South Korean dark fantasy horror film directed by Yim Pil-sung.[2] It achieved a box office run of $2,206,625.
Eun-soo, a salesman, is driving his car along Highway 69 while arguing with his pregnant girlfriend, Hae-young, on the phone. The argument leads to a car crash. He wakes up in a dark forest and meets a young girl, Young-hee, who takes him to her house, called the 'House of Happy Children.' He meets her parents, her older brother Man-bok, and younger sister Jung-soon there. He tries to leave, but the children follow his every move. The parents go out, leaving him to take care of the kids.
To his surprise, he finds the real mother hiding in the attic. She tells him that the couple are not the children's real parents. Their car broke down on Highway 69, and they met Jung-soon in a similar way. She warns him not to believe the children. Man-bok brings a couple to the house: the man, Byun, is a friendly deacon. Eun-soo discovers that the meat they've eaten is actually from the flesh of the missing father, whose wife has been turned into a china doll. He also notices that Byun's wife has disappeared after accusing Jung-soon of stealing her ring. He secretly follows Man-bok into the woods, while keeping a trail of breadcrumbs to avoid getting lost. He discovers Byun's wife has been turned into an oak tree.
Man-bok stops before a mysterious door, and his face changes to an old man's. When he leaves, Eun-soo enters the room and looks over the notebook the siblings have worked on for a long time. He realizes that the children are over thirty years old. He learns that Man-bok has the power of telekinesis and can make people do things by imagining the actions: he is the one who turned the women into a china doll and oak tree earlier. When Eun-soo sees his drawing in the notebook, he becomes determined to stop the children before they murder him. Back at the house, he discovers that Byun is a religious cult leader trying to kill the children. He knocks Byun out and listens to the children's side of the story from Young-hee.
The kids used to live in an orphanage called the 'House of Happy Children,' where the abusive caretaker raped the girls and beat the boys. Man-bok discovered his powers during Christmas when he made Santa Claus appear. Santa told the siblings of their powers and gave them a Hansel and Gretel storybook. After they witnessed their friend Seung-ho being beaten to death, they wished to stop the caretaker, only to find everyone dead and the caretaker about to burn them in the fireplace. Man-bok used his power to kill the caretaker. Now, the children use their powers to make Byun kill himself when he rises to kill Eun-soo.
The children ask Eun-soo to stay with them. However, Eun-soo wishes to reunite with his loved ones and offers to take them with him instead. They refuse, convinced that adults will always be bad. Eun-soo argues that they will be the same if they continue their behaviours. Young-hee tells him to burn the notebook so he can leave, and he does so before Man-bok can stop him. Eun-soo then wakes up where he first met Young-hee. He walks to the road and meets the police. They tell him the tragic stories of Highway 69 as they are amazed at how he has survived.
A year later, on Christmas, Eun-soo has married Hae-young, and they have a baby boy. As he goes out to buy milk, he wonders if that encounter was only a dream. His collection of news clippings of the missing Byun (revealed to be a serial killer) suggests it is real. He comes across the children's notebook. The pages are all blank except the last one, which shows the three children holding hands and smiling. They have given up and realized they don't need parents to be a family. Eun-soo looks out the window to the snow outside. Man-bok, Young-hee, and Jung-soon go back into the woods.