Grace I saw this movie on Netflix and decided to give it a try. To summarize, an ill girl moves to an all girls boarding school which helps sick children. However, all is not as it seems - supernatural displays of strength, disappearing girls, and many death. The idea behind it seemed quite good but unfortunately it was not a great film.The first half hour seemed interesting enough, however after that it all got too samey. There were millions of flashbacks which got pretty tiring, but the most overused scene was the main character staring at blood on her hands. Honestly, I lost count of the times she just stood there staring at her bloody hands after she beat people up or whatever. It's as if they didn't know how to lead on to the next thing so they were just like, "Let's add another hands with blood scene in here!" It was so ridiculous and random, but boring for the watcher. This was just something that irked me as it seemed pretty lazy.My next point - the characters. Shoddy writing to say the least. None of the characters get a proper background or even a glance into what their motives are. Each character is there to serve their purpose to the plot, but the watcher can really feel that and so it is hard to care about any of the characters. The main character is rather bland and boring with not much personality, just looking shocked or scared the whole time.Another thing I considered to be lazy was the ending. They probably thought they were tying all the ends up nicely, but it was so predictable, Also the fact that the headmistress keeps 'treating' the girls when all of her attempts get botched up and people literally die, she keeps going. How desperate is she to find the right 'treatment'? And what do they tell the parents of the kid who dies? Because it is a school for sick children they probably try to pass it off as them dying of illness, but if this were the case wouldn't the parents want the children's body back? I'm sure they wouldn't just be cool with letting the school keep their child's corpse and complaints must have been made, but hey, it's just another technicality that the movie skims over.Overall, The Silenced is rather lazily written, rushing to get to the anticlimactic end scene. Maybe if you have nothing else to do give it a watch but don't set your hopes too high.

kluseba ''The Silenced'' is an above average mystery drama from South Korea with a few minor horror elements. The plot takes places during the thirties of the last century when the country was occupied by the Japanese. It follows the story of a teenage girl who is transferred to an isolated boarding school. After her mother's untimely death from tuberculosis, her father and his new wife are scared to get infected by the teenage girl whose medical condition is getting more and more critical. She gets various medical treatments at the boarding school and finally seems to recover step by step and ends up standing out as a promising sportswomen who might get the occasion to go to Tokyo with another girl to represent the small school honourably. However, strange things happen at the isolated boarding school. Some pupils disappear from one day to another without leaving any trace behind. Several students seem to be emotionally unstable and react in overtly aggressive ways in seemingly random situations without being able to recall these events later on. When the protagonist starts having strange visions, she wonders whether they are due to her new medication or whether there is more to it than that. Along with a new friend, she tries to uncover the school's gloomy secrets.This movie convinces with a mysterious and slightly gloomy atmosphere from start to finish. This is due to the intriguing settings including the isolated boarding school itself, a secret room in the basement and an old forest with a mysterious pond. The authentic traditional costumes, mostly dimmed lighting techniques and the calm and mysterious score add to the gripping atmosphere. Another winning element are the few and cleverly integrated horror parts consisting of strange emotional outbursts of several characters, the protagonist's continuous nightmares and visions and the emotionally and physically brutal conclusion. The movie doesn't have any particular lengths and develops a coherent flow that is slightly slow in the opening twenty minutes, keeps a regular pace most of the time and ends up being a little bit faster in the final twenty minutes.Even though the numerous young actresses are doing a solid job, there isn't anyone that really stands out. Most characters are slightly too exchangeable, pale and shy to get the audience emotionally involved with any of them. Despite a mysterious tone throughout the movie, the film reveals too many hints too quickly which leads to a quite predictable story halfway through the movie where the movie loses some momentum. The ending was a little bit too exaggerated, intense and stereotypical to go with the rest of the film. This is one of the rare films where I prefer the smooth, slow and gloomy first part of a film over the more intense, fast paced and engaging second half. In the end, fans of South Korean cinema, atmospheric mystery movies and smooth teenage dramas should give this interesting mixture of genres a chance. Those who are expecting a truly original plot, outstanding acting performances or a scary horror film should look elsewhere. This is an entertaining movie for a lazy autumn or winter night at home but nothing more.

melindaleonie It has a very predictable plot. I was expecting a twist but there is none. The story line was not congruent.#SPOILER ALERT# DON'T READ BEYOND THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE SPOILERBasically this movie is about a drug trial that is conducted to some of these girls without them knowing. So there is no ICF nor assent form signed. Those that experienced the side effect (aka Serious Adverse Event) would disappear. The drug would give them a super-human power, but might cause some adverse event such as seizure? death? well, they only show the first subject as suddenly having a seizure and then she was taken away by the school. If that was not cliché enough, at the end of the movie, the heroin used her super power to annihilate the school. The rest of the girls was being sedated with their gas drugs and they suddenly awaken and kill the principal in the most gruesome way.

Aria Ariana The Silenced or it's Korean title translated Gyeongseong High School : The Disappearance of the Girls made me dive into the story right from the start. The story, i believe took place sometime during the Japan colonization in Korea. And the mysterious disappearance of the girls happened in this boarding school.Joo Ran (Park Bo Young) as the centre point in this whole story shoulders her own weight. I couldn't help but sympathize her for the treatment she received.A mysterious incident took place one by one and it makes me wonder what's the deal with this shady boarding school who only has a very few students and was built way too deep into the forest. It's easy to lay suspicion as to whom is the one behind the disappearance but the real question is why this has to happened.I'm just a little bit disappointing near the ends because i was expecting some historical reference to be the reason of the disappearance but surely the story take it's own twist. I've watched too many movies, I started developing an expectation on a certain pattern that a movie with this genre should have.Not really the ending that I want but it's worthwhile for anyone who loves mystery/thriller/crime movies. Happy watching.Sorry for this kinda crappy review. I haven't written in a while.