There are certain directors who can make a simple love story between a girl and a boy so fascinating, so romantic, so heart touching that you feel that this can not be just a film. Yet at the same time there are also directors who manage to screw up a script/story which is already so good and so exciting. The director of the film White Night is a mixture of those two personalities.
The great part of this film is the love story between the two main actor/actress. I was really sucked into their relationship and it was quite a few times which I was forced to remind myself that this is only a film, its not real. The relationship between them is very ordinary for a film, you can see many examples from other romantic films but this director really managed to make it very thrilling and moving.
However the same can not be said about the film in general. The writer of this film is a genius, I could see how great this story would have been had it been a stand alone book, Im sure it would have been a bestseller. For some odd reason the director of this film screwed it up. First is the pacing, at the beginning everything was going so fast. Random people turned up and disappeared, names got cast around and it was hard to hang on to to the plot and know who was who. I am not a native Korean so to remember the names of people have always proved a huge challenge in Korean films, however this one is even more difficult since for the first hour or so everything was so fast, and the many flashbacks made everything ... confusing. The last part of the film was very slow, nothing much happened and when I finally knew the names and the plot I really wanted action, something unexpected to happen but I never got any. The ending was very sad and boring. The woman who have been so warm for the whole movie suddenly turned cold, very cold, with no obvious reason.
I would advice the director of this film to make a pure romantic film next time, not some mystery thriller. Winter Night was a mediocre film which should be watched by people who seek a great love story and not a mystery/thriller film. The person who is the murder is obvious already in the first few minutes....
The great part of this film is the love story between the two main actor/actress. I was really sucked into their relationship and it was quite a few times which I was forced to remind myself that this is only a film, its not real. The relationship between them is very ordinary for a film, you can see many examples from other romantic films but this director really managed to make it very thrilling and moving.
However the same can not be said about the film in general. The writer of this film is a genius, I could see how great this story would have been had it been a stand alone book, Im sure it would have been a bestseller. For some odd reason the director of this film screwed it up. First is the pacing, at the beginning everything was going so fast. Random people turned up and disappeared, names got cast around and it was hard to hang on to to the plot and know who was who. I am not a native Korean so to remember the names of people have always proved a huge challenge in Korean films, however this one is even more difficult since for the first hour or so everything was so fast, and the many flashbacks made everything ... confusing. The last part of the film was very slow, nothing much happened and when I finally knew the names and the plot I really wanted action, something unexpected to happen but I never got any. The ending was very sad and boring. The woman who have been so warm for the whole movie suddenly turned cold, very cold, with no obvious reason.
I would advice the director of this film to make a pure romantic film next time, not some mystery thriller. Winter Night was a mediocre film which should be watched by people who seek a great love story and not a mystery/thriller film. The person who is the murder is obvious already in the first few minutes....