Bluebeard (2017)

An unabashed portrayal of man's descent into madness

Who defines madness and who are we to do so really? Till where does one establish a line and say that, this and onwards is deemed crazy? Aren't we all crazy then? This film is a clever depiction of such vague themes and raises questions that are usually avoided and left unanswered due to said or unsaid societal norms...The premise is dark and rather melancholic, with a doctor who moves to the countryside and works at a fairly small clinic, after a failed practice and marriage in Gangnam... He stays rather aloof and usually just keeps to the clinic and home, on doing a colonoscopy once he comes across his landlord's father speaking under the influence of anaesthesia, describing what sounds like a well planned murder coming from someone with experience. From then on there isn't any clear distinction between reality and imagination, and much of it is left to the audience's conscience to decide for what had actually happened...
The pace is slow allowing the tension to build steadily...the direction is clever and tries to impart meaning to a lot of its setting and the surroundings, it is a delight for a keen and intuitive audience...I would also like to give credit for the ingenious selection, the title of the film is...from what I understand, it is in reference to the French folklore Bluebeard wherein the antagonist would test his numerous wives on their obedience with the penalty being death...
Overall it was rather twisted and didn't show the best in humans but made me sympathize with the one who slowly lost his sanity in the company of all those around him...It is a subtle commentary on the dog eat dog world we live in where people go beyond limits to safeguard their own interests...

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As expected from the writer of "Stranger"! The story was a little slow for my taste but did not bore me, and the suspense was just right. It was quite disturbing. The story was slightly different from what I had in my head as I began watching but it definitely not a waste of time. It's not one of those dramas I would like to rewatch though. The plot was nicely packed into a 2-hour-long movie.

The music helped bring a certain mood to the scene and made it even more suspenseful, but the music itself was nothing memorable.

Also, Jo Jin Woong never fails to impress me with his acting! If it had not been because of him, I do not think I would have enjoyed it as much as I did.

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not my cup of tea

I tried watching this twice before but it doesn’t catch my interest, but for the third time pick it up again to get bored and had to watch this on 2x speed. The story is slow-paced and the eerie is not haunting to give me goosebumps.
Because the story is developed on the son's trick who hides his father's psychopathic nature with the help of his girlfriend. Honestly, there was no haunting feel with that chopped head, maybe because I have seen more dead bodies than that. Keeping the head in the freezer is a simple thing because the dead bodies are kept in formaldehyde.

I felt bad for the doctor, his life turned upside down and he got framed into a crime he hasn’t done. He was not a likable character but the events happening to him were bad. I disliked how the cops treated him because they only believed in the testimonies and evidence. They didn’t do any proper investigation. There had been already deaths before his move but still, he got framed because this involved him personally. Isn't it their duty to find the killer?

The acting was OK, since I didn’t like the movie much, nobody impressed me. Only Doctor Seung Hoon is somewhat good.

As we all know music plays a great role in creating an atmosphere to haunt but it lacked here too. The silence was not natural so that part also didn’t work.

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Unsettling

A gripping psychological horror-thriller with a tense, eerie atmosphere, a more than serviceable score, a plethora of intriguing characters, twists and turns. Great cinematography, color palette, framing and blocking is masterful.

Bluebeard, (original title "Thawing") starts strong, the plot twist around 2/3 of the runtime is so convoluted I couldn't believe it, which is why I love the ending because I want that to be the truth. Still, there are many unanswered questions, this movie might need repeat viewings.

Cho Jin Woong is phenomenal as a suffocatingly repressed, uptight yet sensual, nervous but closed-off, righteous, shy, depressed, calm man who is slowly driven out of his mind. Kim Dae Myung is very convincing too as a mirror character between trying to keep control over something increasingly terrorizing and carefully weighing each step towards his new neighbor.

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