Sorum DVD Review

Sorum DVD review

Written and directed by Yoon-Jong Chan
Runtime – 112 minutes
Not Rated

Starring:

Jang Jin-Young as Sun-Yeong
Kim Myung-Min as Yong-Hyun

The Film:

“Pitiful” is the word Yoon-Jong Chan, the film’s director, and Kim Myung-Min, one of the film’s actors uses to describe the characters in the film. In the making-of included on the DVD of Sorum, the word “pitiful” is mentioned many times. It almost becomes a mantra. The pitiful girl. The pitiful boy. The pitiful people. It gives the making-of film an odd tone. It’s as if everyone involved is looking down at the people in the story. What I find so deliriously funny, though, is that the film itself is far more pitiful than any of the characters that populate it.

Sorum is supposedly a ghost story. Maybe it is. However, there is little in the film to support that claim. If there are ghosts in this film, they are very lazy, or very ineffectual. The film opens with a young man, Sun-Yeong (Jang Jin-Young) entering his new apartment. It is a dingy place. Graffiti lines the walls. Junk and abandoned toys litters the hallways. The bulbs have a way of flickering on and off at the most inopportune moments. Sun-Yeong is a taxi driver running from his past. We get very little of his back story, just that he had a girlfriend who used him and is now missing.

Sun-Yeong’s apartment was once home to another young man. That young man died in a fire, after swearing he heard a ghost. Sun-Yeong finds out from the landlord that decades earlier, a family lived there. The family consisted of a man, his wife, and their son. The man started an affair with his neighbor. He then killed his wife and left the son for dead, running off with the neighbor. A fire eventually broke out in the apartment, and the neighbors managed to save the child from a fiery grave.

Sounds like the set-up for a perfect ghost story, right? Sure does. And that’s why one of the current occupants, an ex-publisher, is writing a book based on those events. However, almost none of this is mentioned for the first 35 minutes of the film. And once it is mentioned, it’s brushed aside as the film focuses on the Sun-Yeong’s affair with his neighbor, Yong-Hyun (Kim Myung-Min). Sun-Yeong has seen Yong-Hyun around (she’s a clerk at the local 7-11), but takes no interest in her until a friend of his comments that “he would do her.” From then on, Sun-Yeong takes more and more interest in her, and she reciprocates his affections. But are her feelings genuine?

I mentioned earlier that the ghosts in Sorum are lazy. The only indication that they even exist are when the lights flash on and off, and in the pages of a novel. Sorum focuses so little on the ghosts that they never represent any threat at all. The only indication that the ghost could be violent is the death by fire of the previous tenant of the apartment. The atmosphere doesn’t help, either. Sure, the apartments are dark and dingy, but they just look worn down, not filled with secrets. Considering that the ghost uses the building to communicate, you’d think it would feel more alive. It doesn’t. The film doesn’t even feel creepy. As a ghost story, Sorum is severely anemic.

That leaves the story between Sun-Yeong and Yong-Hyun. Unfortunately, their courtship is about as lively as a bear in hibernation. Yong-Hyun as a character is someone who has been emotionally broken many times over. Myung-Min unfortunately decides to play this entirely on the surface, without any depth whatsoever. She spends the entire film staring into space. Jin-Young doesn’t do a bad job of carrying the film, but Sun-Yeong isn’t interesting enough as a character to merit his own movie.

The plot also manages to be extremely formulaic. About an hour into the film, I predicted what would happen through the end. I was 100% correct. That’s a shame, as I like movies to surprise me. Sure, not every film will be original, but if you can’t care about the characters, the ghosts, or the atmosphere, all you have left is the hope that the plot will take a turn that you did not expect. This does not happen.

“Pitiful” clearly is the key word when it comes to Sorum.

The Picture:

To put it plainly, the picture disappoints. It’s widescreen, but not anamorphic. It’s a shame, but that’s how Sorum is presented to us. Furthermore, the print used is scratched and blemished. Badly so, in fact. On the plus side, I could find no compression artifacts, and the color reproduction seemed accurate.

The Sound:

Unlike the picture, the sound is actually excellent, especially the DTS track. The rears get a good workout, with rain dripping and other sound effects being thrown to the rears. The sound in the film comes closest to providing a creepy atmosphere, so it’s nice to hear it this way. The disc also includes a good Dolby Digital 5.1 track and a 2.0 track that isn’t as effective.

The Extras:

The aforementioned making-of is the only real extra feature on the disc. It has interviews with the director and actors, as well as a lot of on-set and production meeting footage. Everyone seems very excited about the film, and there are some interesting scenes where the director tells the actors that the production is running out of time, so they’ll have to rush some of the scenes. There’s also a trailer for the film, as well as trailers for other recent Tartan releases, and a photo gallery.

Grades:
Film style: D
Film Content: D-- (Themes)/F (Plot)
Picture: D
Sound: A
Extras: C-

Conclusion:

With so many great horror films coming out of Korea today, there is no reason to see Sorum.