Despite being unsure what it is, Into the Mirror succeeds in spinning an entertaining yarn.
Ji-tae Yu is Woo Yeong-min, a former policeman who's been reduced to security guard for his uncle's company since a hostage incident 1 year prior resulted in the death of a man as a consequence of a mistake from Min. He opted to shoot the aggressor and missed, shooting his reflection by mistake. The occurrence left him completely traumatised and entirely miserable, and unable to look himself in the mirror.
However, when 2 employees of the company die in extremely mysterious circumstances, Min's former partner on the force, Heo Hyeon-su joins the investigation and strange goings on continue.
Part supernatural chiller, part cop drama, part psychological drama, part surreal mystery, Into the Mirror is very much an eclectic mix of different styles of movie. It without question succeeds in the basic discipline of any film, that of concertedly engaging the viewer's attention for the duration, and it does this thanks to a number of elements:
First of all the cinematography is spot on, and is extremely good at facilitating the supernatural psychology. Aided by a director who seems to know exactly what to show us, each scene is smartly captured, with many clever uses of mirrors. Many occasions will call for your attention on more than one thing, and the mystery of wondering what, if any, wrongness will occur is well realised.
Furthermore, the acting is surprisingly decent for an Asian movie. As ignorant as that may sound, I have viewed many Asian films and the acting is uniformly rather bland. Even though westerners do not understand the language, emotion et al can still come across on celluloid and Asian movies are often left wanting here. However, Into the Mirror is more than decent in this area for once, with good performances from a fair few players. It certainly adds to the experience when it's not just the story we watch for.
There lies another strength. As touched on earlier the movie is downright entertaining, and relies on a pretty strong script and effective narrative. This film is never boring, aided and abetted by a script which never has vacuous moments and empty sequences. Everything is there for a reason.
However, the big weakness is the overriding suspicion that the film really doesn't know what it is trying to be. With so many styles mixed together, it comes across as more of a salad bowl than melting pot. Weird goings-on akin to the spooky occurrences in movies like Ring seem a little out of joint in the company of a police drama and crime mystery.
However, if you are willing to forgive this lack of harmony, like I, then you can overlook it and accept the movie for what it is: An entertaining yarn with enough going for it to keep you watching.
One last flaw though is the ending. Obviously I am not going to give it away, but the problem with it is it seems far too ambitious, and not a tad confusing. I was left not so much baffled as to what was going on, but what it actually meant overall. This took the shine off perhaps a little, but it was still a fine picture overall and I would still recommend it.
Ji-tae Yu is Woo Yeong-min, a former policeman who's been reduced to security guard for his uncle's company since a hostage incident 1 year prior resulted in the death of a man as a consequence of a mistake from Min. He opted to shoot the aggressor and missed, shooting his reflection by mistake. The occurrence left him completely traumatised and entirely miserable, and unable to look himself in the mirror.
However, when 2 employees of the company die in extremely mysterious circumstances, Min's former partner on the force, Heo Hyeon-su joins the investigation and strange goings on continue.
Part supernatural chiller, part cop drama, part psychological drama, part surreal mystery, Into the Mirror is very much an eclectic mix of different styles of movie. It without question succeeds in the basic discipline of any film, that of concertedly engaging the viewer's attention for the duration, and it does this thanks to a number of elements:
First of all the cinematography is spot on, and is extremely good at facilitating the supernatural psychology. Aided by a director who seems to know exactly what to show us, each scene is smartly captured, with many clever uses of mirrors. Many occasions will call for your attention on more than one thing, and the mystery of wondering what, if any, wrongness will occur is well realised.
Furthermore, the acting is surprisingly decent for an Asian movie. As ignorant as that may sound, I have viewed many Asian films and the acting is uniformly rather bland. Even though westerners do not understand the language, emotion et al can still come across on celluloid and Asian movies are often left wanting here. However, Into the Mirror is more than decent in this area for once, with good performances from a fair few players. It certainly adds to the experience when it's not just the story we watch for.
There lies another strength. As touched on earlier the movie is downright entertaining, and relies on a pretty strong script and effective narrative. This film is never boring, aided and abetted by a script which never has vacuous moments and empty sequences. Everything is there for a reason.
However, the big weakness is the overriding suspicion that the film really doesn't know what it is trying to be. With so many styles mixed together, it comes across as more of a salad bowl than melting pot. Weird goings-on akin to the spooky occurrences in movies like Ring seem a little out of joint in the company of a police drama and crime mystery.
However, if you are willing to forgive this lack of harmony, like I, then you can overlook it and accept the movie for what it is: An entertaining yarn with enough going for it to keep you watching.
One last flaw though is the ending. Obviously I am not going to give it away, but the problem with it is it seems far too ambitious, and not a tad confusing. I was left not so much baffled as to what was going on, but what it actually meant overall. This took the shine off perhaps a little, but it was still a fine picture overall and I would still recommend it.