| Directed 
              by Ahn Byeong-ki, 2000, 97 min. starring Kim Gyu-ri, Ha Ji-weon, 
              Choi Jeong-yun, Yu Ji-tae, Yu Jun-Sang, and Jo Hye-yeong.  
 The 
              vengeful spirit is nothing new to the horror movie genre. Horror 
              film annals are littered with them. It's always easy to hate the 
              evil ghost – despite the fact that several wrongs have been 
              committed to make that ghost a ghost. But basic human law dictates 
              to us that killing is wrong and that evil must be punished. Combine 
              that with the fact that we tend to fear what we can't control or 
              understand, then it's always gonna be good versus evil. But 
              what if evil is born out of evil? Does it have a right to exist 
              then? Does it have a reason to do what it does? That is the moral 
              interplay present in Nightmare (aka Gawi, aka Horror 
              Game Movie, aka Scissors). But before you go looking 
              for a deep, insightful, and morally complex film, HOLD ON! I'm just 
              laying the groundwork here… :-) Granted 
              I haven’t seen that many Korean horror films (or Korean films 
              in general) so I may be wrong with this generalization, but I found 
              Nightmare to be relatively faster-paced than most Korean 
              films (anyone who has seen the painstakingly-slow Sorum 
              will know what I'm talking about here), a concept I found refreshing. 
              Part of the edge that this movie has is its impressive editing, 
              which is used to full effect in certain scenes. But one might find 
              himself thinking "Oh yeah, I've seen this before", 
              since it does heavily borrow styles and gimmicks from several Western 
              slasher films. If not for the oriental actors, you'd think you were 
              watching a Wes Craven extravaganza.  Despite 
              this, I still can't bring myself to call it a copycat. There’s 
              still something original going on throughout this film that I can't 
              seem to put my finger on. Maybe it's the performances. Perhaps it's 
              the attempts at gore that most mainstream Western horror flicks 
              tend to shy away from. For all the been there, seen that 
              feeling which is prevalent in the film, it still stands out as a 
              semi-impressive horror movie. Ambivalent? 
              Well yes, and no ;-)  Synopsis “Kyung-ah 
              brings death, even after being dead herself…” The 
              story is quite difficult to summarize, since three different time 
              frames hold three different key plot points. But I'll try… The 
              story begins with Hye-jin (Gyu-ri Kim) coming home from school, 
              and she finds on her doorstep Seon-ae (Jeong-yun Choi), an old college 
              friend and member of their group A Few Good Men that she 
              hasn't seen in two years. They catch up, ask about what's going 
              on with the rest of the group. But clearly Hye-jin sees something 
              is troubling her friend, especially when she brings up an old classmate 
              of theirs, Kyung-ah (Ji-won Ha) who died under mysterious circumstances. 
              She brushes this off as perhaps a case of jetlag. The 
              next morning, Hye-jin meets up with the other members of A Few 
              Good Men and discovers they too seem to have unresolved issues 
              with this Kyung-ah. Se-Hun keeps painting her, but can’t seem 
              to remember her face, and Hyun-jun (Ji-tae Yu) once a promising 
              athlete, now a steel mill worker after a broken knee rendered him 
              unable to play sports, has nothing but awful things to say about 
              her. And the rest of the group, lawyer (and brother to Hyun-jun) 
              Jeong-ok (Jun-Sang Yu), and actress Mi-Ryeong (Hye-yeong Jo) seem 
              to want to be quiet on the issue. This leads Hye-jin to believe 
              that they do share a terrible secret, one that will manifest itself 
              soon. However, 
              in a flashback scene detailing events which happened two years ago, 
              Hye-jin meets a young woman who introduces herself as Eun-ju. Hye-jin 
              feels a certain amount of empathy for her, it’s almost as 
              if she had known her from before. The two become good friends, and 
              eventually she asks Eun-ju to be a part of their group; although 
              the girl is hesitant to begin with, finally she reluctantly agrees. 
               When 
              Eun-ju is introduced to the other Good Men, sparks fly (good kind) 
              between her and Hyun-jun, and even more sparks fly (bad kind) between 
              her and Sun-ae, since Sun-ae has a major crush on Hyun-jun. Her 
              anger is further fueled when she sees them kissing in the garden 
              one afternoon. Scorned, Sun-ae makes it her personal mission to 
              destroy Eun-ju. 
               She 
              gets her chance one night, when the group decide to get together 
              at Se-hun's studio. While waiting for Eun-ju to arrive, she tells 
              the story of a little girl that she and Hye-jin used to know during 
              their childhood in the country - alittle girl who was believed to 
              be possessed by an evil spirit and hence was blamed for all sorts 
              of horrible things. Her name was Kyung-ah. However, 
              during the telling of the tale, Eun-ju arrives, just in time for 
              Sun-ae's grand revelation. Sun-ae continues by telling the story 
              of a horrific bus accident involving Kyung-ah, where she was the 
              only survivor and everyone else was killed. The same little girl 
              that was in the vicinity of, and therefore was blamed for, the death 
              of Hye-jin's father. Kyung-ah was never heard from again after that 
              summer...  Sun-ae 
              then finishes off her tale by dramatically announcing that their 
              latest Few Good Men member, Eun-ju, is, in actuality, Kyung-ah... 
              the supposedly-possessed little girl responsible for Hye-Jin's father's 
              death. Hye-jin 
              is shocked at this revelation, and confronts Eun-ju with it. Unsurprisingly, 
              Eun-ju confesses the truth, and tells Hye-jin she only wants to 
              be her friend again. Feeling betrayed, she tells Eun-ju to stay 
              out of her life forever, and she walks out on the group. After a 
              few moments to herself, Hye-jin decides to walk back to the studio, 
              where she finds Eun-ju atop the building, as she plummets to her 
              death.  Back 
              in the present time, however, riddled with guilt, Eun-ju's suicide 
              still haunts Hye-jin to this day. And quite literally, at that, 
              as she experiences a Ju-on 
              like apparition upon awakening. A few seconds later, she gets a 
              frantic phone call from Sun-ae that Kyung-ah is after her. Meanwhile, 
              Se-hun is making out with some girl in his car. She steps out to 
              pee, and in true horror movie tradition, Se-hun is attacked by the 
              vengeful ghost of Kyung-ah. She rips Se-hun's eyeball out, but he 
              manages to run to a pay phone to call Hyun-jun and tell him that 
              Kyung-ah is after him; and I'm sure you can imagine what happens 
              to Se-hun in the phone booth... ;-) The 
              next morning, the remaining Few Good Men get a note saying 
              that Kyung-ah's revenge has begun. They brush it off as a prank, 
              but are unnerved by it nonetheless. At this time, Jeong-ok tells 
              the group that Sun-ae underwent psychiatric treatment while she 
              was in the US. This makes her an easy culprit for all the pranks, 
              since it was after all her who initiated Eun-ju's demise.  During 
              this time, Hyun-jun, temporarily living in Se-hun’s studio, 
              wants to get his life in order, and enlists the help of his lawyer 
              brother to help get the family business back. Being the levelheaded 
              older brother, he says it's a lost cause, and that he should give 
              up on it. This sparks some sibling rivalry with the two, and Hyun-jun 
              tells him off. After an angry rampage, he discovers a videotape 
              labeled A Few Good Men. He watches it and discovers some 
              pretty incriminating footage on it. So he uses this tape to blackmail 
              his brother for cash, much to the sibling's chagrin. We later see 
              on the tape proof that Jeong-ok and Mi-ryeong have been having an 
              affair and are still continuing to do so, even though Jeong-ok is 
              married.  Reveling 
              in his victory at Se-hun’s studio, Hyun-jun gets an unexpected 
              visit from Kyung-ah, leaving his corpse to be discovered by the 
              paranoid pair of Jeong-ok and Mi-ryeong, who are in search of the 
              original of the blackmail video. While looking for the tape, they 
              discover Sun-ae there; it would appear she has the original video, 
              but runs away with it so the couple can't get it back. Fearing for 
              a scandal, the two decide to break it off finally, and as a result, 
              something terrible happens in the shower... So 
              with the three remaining Few Good Men, their fates seem 
              to be sealed. They increasingly become more paranoid of each other, 
              still thinking that one of them is the murderer who has killed all 
              the rest - especially since Hye-jin stumbles upon the videotape 
              and sees what actually happened to Eun-ju after she had left the 
              night she committed suicide. But why the vengeance? Why the murders? 
               On 
              the surface, Gawi seems pretty much cut and paste when 
              it comes to the plot, although there are some things that might 
              actually surprise you. The movie actually has some interesting plot 
              twists that could get you either seriously involved with the story, 
              or completely disinterested in finding out what happens. It’s 
              a film that could go either way – a real love-it-or-hate-it 
              movie. More 
              than anything, the film succeeds in giving you a good mystery. It's 
              not a mystery where the viewer doesn't know who the killer is until 
              the end; it's more of an open question as to why is the murderer 
              committing these heinous crimes at all. You really can't peg who 
              the villain is, but it's clear who the hero is. All the characterizations 
              are valid, except perhaps some hammy acting towards the end on the 
              part of Jun-Sang Yu (Jeong-ok). Ji-won Ha (luminous star of another 
              Ahn Byeong-ki frightfest reviewed on this site, Phone) 
              plays the 'good' Eun-ju with absolute sympathy, but her parallel 
              role as the 'evil' Kyung-Ah has an annoying tendency to be a tad 
              stoic, and not very scary. Marilyn Manson scares me more 
              ;-) As for the rest of the performances, they're pretty impressive 
              – no one goes overboard. The 
              special effects are used sporadically, but to good effect. Simple 
              scare tactics are rampant throughout the film, not really intended 
              to scare you, but to merely push the plot along. Twists and turns 
              abound, and with good editing, vibrant coloring, and excellent camera 
              work, Nightmare succeeds in being a well-made horror movie. 
               Snowblood 
              Apple Rating for this film: Entertainment value: 6/10
 Chills: 2/10
 Violence: 6/10
 Sex: 3/10
 Shock Factor: 1/10 - let's face it, if you've seen Phone 
              and its ilk, you know what's coming
 Sadako Factor: Butt-clenchingly high
 Needle to Eyelid Ratio: Butt-clenchingly high
 Black-haired Girl Ghosts in a sub-Sadako style: 2, if you count 
              the little one and the big one
 Other Films Which Bear An Uncanny Resemblence to Gawi: 
              Phone, Ring, 
              Memento Mori, Inner 
              Senses
 
 ***A good mystery story with some nice visuals, but only really 
              worth renting***
 Gawi 
              Wallpaper
   You can download this wallpaper here: [800x600] 
              [1024x768]
 Wallpaper credit: Larry D Burns, 2003
 
 Snowblood Apple Filmographies
 
 Ahn 
              Byeong-ki
 Kim Gyu-ri
 Ha Ji-weon
 
 Links
 http://www.sanchodoesasia.com/sdk/sdk_nightmare.php 
              - Sancho Does Asia have never let us down yet :-) - as ever, a great 
              review by Akatomy, with some high-quality pics [French only]http://www.nixflix.com/reviews/nightmare.htm 
              - fairly well-observed review from Nixflix, sadly lacking in imagery 
              though - some useful buying links and cast/crew information
 http://koreanfilm.org/kfilm00.html#nightmare 
              - a very good short review, with some interesting insights from 
              a Korean point of view
 http://starbase.mine.nu/~xup/slasherpool/htm/reviews/nightmare.htm 
              - another well-written review at Slasherpool, this time with a small 
              image gallery
 http://cultcuts.net/nightmare.htm 
              - a very long (and overly positive) review, with a full plot outline, 
              technical specifications and a few pictures - slightly spoiler-intensive 
              (like we're not ;-)), so be warned
 http://www.asianfilms.org/korea/nightmare.html 
              - short review with print source and relevant information
 http://www.cinema-nocturna.com/nightmare_review.htm 
              - a longer review, with some images
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