Fridae

History tells us that artists work best when they are persecuted or somehow constrained. The Hayes Code in America and censorship laws led to the rise of film noir, while the self-imposed limitations of the Lars von Trier’s Dogme 95 Collective led to a period of high experimentation and indie filmmaking.

In Korean cinema, the expected length of a box office film is no less than 120 minutes, give or take a few. Yet how many stories can you tell without running out of steam just after the more usual 90 minutes? This is why a Korean film is characterised by the ‘double twist’ in the mid-way point and end of second act. The quintessential Korean film is a psychological thriller – audiences wouldn’t stand for such convoluted storytelling otherwise. And it’s no surprise that audiences weaned on a steady diet of Korean films will find Hollywood’s thrillers (Shutter Island, for example) rather predictable in comparison.

Bestseller is another psychological thriller in the Korean mould. A talented writer (Uhm Jung-hwa) is put in cold storage after allegations of plagiarism torpedo her career. Eager to make a comeback, she brings her kindergarten age daughter (Park Sa-rang) to an idyllic village retreat to write a new novel. It’s a real idyllic coastal village with a zero crime rate (Hot Fuzz fans will grin at this detail), quaint natives, and a seemingly haunted house whose ghostly inhabitant tells a grisly tale of a murder to the daughter, who tells it to the mother, who writes it for the public, who recognise it as a word-for-word plagiarism... So was there a ghost? Was the writer insane? Was there a murder that occurred exactly as the two writers described? When the final twist unravels itself, you’d figure that Scooby Doo and gang should be the ones cracking this case!

The premise is interesting, the ride is exhilarating, but the execution can be improved. For one thing, Lee’s script and and his direction of Uhm are so over the top (for non-Korean audiences), the first half of the film feels as campy as Mummy Dearest. Once that first twist and its accompanying atmospherics are over and done with, the real fun begins. Whether you’d enjoy it or not depends on your appreciation of the double twist in Korean films.