pasang-sharma
I am a huge fan of the thriller genre, so it goes without saying am overly particular and highly critical about reviewing and voting for these films.It takes quite a lot to impress me to say the least.Now lets see, first, for people who say this movie is mediocre, did you once take your eye balls away from the screen,even when you knew who the culprit was already.Yea that's what i thought.I don't know what you people look for when you go to watch a film. You cant expect all the films to be an old boy or a memories of murder otherwise their would not have have been an old boy now,Would There!!!To give away the whodunnit factor in the beginning itself, which could have been a disaster and still make the movie as thrilling and interesting as it were just speaks volumes of this film.7/10 A must watch if you are a thriller enthusiast like me.
bcheng93
good decent flick but not quite an A option unless you are a huge fan of thrillers and Korean flicks, but still a solid B or B+ option. The Koreans never seem to turn out a really bad movie and this was no different.do Koreans ever shoot in anything in normal colors and tones, it seems that every movie is shot in an over-saturated color tone and quite frankly i like to see a different style.( just like they don't make bad movies i guess )the movie got favorable reviews from just about everybody that rated it and after watching it, i would agree that it is a good movie but not as tension filled for me...which was a letdown, compared to everybody else that saw it.story is about a psychotic schizo who gets infatuated with a overnight radio personality and what happens after he decides to take action on his wild thoughts and the aftermath of his actions. the guy that plays the villain is pretty good, he is the same villain from "oldboy". all in all, the movie has really high production values, is very well paced for a thriller and the acting was good thru-out....what's with the Travis Bickle angle though, i don't know, i mean Travis is iconic and this movie doesn't come close to " taxi driver ", and as an afterthought i hope it was only an homage, hehe!
DICK STEEL
The momentum for Korean Thrillers is picking up slowly but surely, with recent films like The Chaser and Man From Nowhere getting critical acclaim and scoring at their home box office with their very edgy treatment and storytelling, putting the audience at the edge of their seats with aplomb. The next such film to hit the screens here is Midnight FM, and director Kim Sang-Man had proved that this film belongs to the same echelons as the films mentioned, where a celebrity DJ has to deal with a violent, psychotic stalker.Soo-Ae of Once in a Summer fame plays Ko Sun-Young, a highly popular DJ whose shift in the graveyard hours is coming to an end soon. On her final day, she finds herself being blackmailed by an unknown person who had gained an upper hand at being inside her home and holding her loved one hostage, before demonstrating that he's a huge deranged fan of hers, posing questions based on her show's past to play a sick game where every wrong answer would mean that something violent and gruesome got to be inflicted on the hostages.In some ways this film seemed to have two separate phases, with the first phase taking place in very confined spaces, such as the DJ's booth and console, and that of Sun-Young's house where you have children and her teenage sister having to hide from a home invader. It's almost like David Fincher's Panic Room with a cat and mouse game of hide and seek gets played out in a swanky apartment, which makes for some nice touches of suspense and thrills, given the claustrophobic space in which to play a deadly quiz. It's like a ping pong game of desperately trying to gain and regain the upper hand from each side, knowing that with that comes bargaining power.Then there's the utilization of space, as the narrative takes place outside of the confined spaces, shaking you out of your comfort zone just as you thought everything will shuttle back and forth between the locations, and becoming a full fledged action film complete with car chases to boot. A number of support characters got introduced here, from bland, ineffective cops to fellow co-workers now into the scheme of things to assist Sun-Young, although their presence do not distract you from the main players, offering only slight support to fulfill their one role function before disappearing into the background again. More obnoxious characters enter the scene such as various levels of bureaucracy at the radio station to come disrupt proceedings since Sun-Yong had veered really off course in her programme, which adds another layer of complexity for Sun-Young to battle against.Soo-Ae cuts a confident figure on the top of her game as Sun-Young, before the threat turned her into quite the nervous wreck hell bent on rescuing her daughter at any expense. Like a chameleon, Soo-Ae handles both sides to her character with skill, making you root for her along the way even though she mercilessly rejects the advances and help of yet another stalker who decides to stake out at her office since it's after all, her final day there. As the antagonist, Yoo Ji-Tae is the man you'd love to hate, personifying pure evil in his dastardly plan that comes with layers and enough Plan Bs to keep him off the law enforcement radar and long arm of the law. His Han Dong-Su is the ultimate stalker complete with shrine and audio recordings at his hideout, and Ji-Tae's creepy portrayal makes the character someone not to be messed with for his penchant for violence. A nice little backstory to link up seemingly disparate events to debunk the myth of randomness was a nice touch, but could be done without.With the bulk of the film taking place within two hours of Sun-Young's final shift at work, Midnight FM is by and large one of the better thrillers out there this year, being intense and edgy from the time the antagonist enters the picture to begin his deadly game. Kim Sang- Man crafted a film that is paced expertly, knowing when to speed things up with high octane action, and slowing things down yet keeping a pulse on the frenzied state of mind of its characters, making this film way above average thrillers and is well worth experiencing on the big screen. Highly recommended!
KineticSeoul
Okay, so I was in the mood for some good thriller movie from Asia and decided to check this movie out, plus it has Su-Ae in it who is a pretty and yet elegant actress. So I thought it wasn't going to be a big waste of time, in fact by watching the trailer I thought this movie was going to be similar to the movie "P2". Which is another thriller and has a smart female protagonist that uses her wits without going overboard to try and survive the nightmare from a crazy stalker. Anyways I thought it was going to be like that movie. And from the trailer it looked pretty intriguing although nothing much happens in the trailer, which is for the most part a good thing in this case. This movie has suspenseful scenes but unlike "P2" a lot of the parts takes place outside of the building the protagonist resides in. Su-Ae played her role in a very balanced way where it didn't come off like a annoying victim in a movie. Although there are annoying characters in this movie but it's intentional, and yet very annoying, luckily she isn't one of them. Yoo Ji-Tae also does a fine job playing the villain, he always seemed to play the psychotic character pretty well and it's the same for this movie as well. Although this movie is full of incompetent and annoying characters that constantly get in the way, I did like the stalker helping fight another stalker aspect of it. Overall this was a pretty good Korean thriller that is put together really well near the end.8/10