Kailansorac
Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.
TrueHello
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Janae Milner
Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Calum Hutton
It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
starsybyll
The story revolves around Hyun-soo and her mother, plastic surgeon Yoon- hee who have a very close and loving relationship. The first portion is relatively straight-forward body horror involving an unknown ghost causing the friends of Hyun-soo, who have undergone plastic surgery, to go mad and mutilate their faces. Meanwhile, Hyun-soo investigates her home and discovers a photo of a badly burned child with her name. The second half of the film revolves around the story of how Hyun-soo was burned and how she ended up with a new face. Yoon-hee took in a lost girl after Hyun-soo's accident and, after a time, decides to remove her face and transplant it to Hyun-soo. Yoon-hee then keeps the second girl locked up in the basement for years where she eventually hangs herself, returning as a ghost to haunt the family.The most prominent issue with this film is the tendency it has to skip around in time with no warning and for no purpose. The second portion involving the other Hyun-soo is particularly confusing as many different points in time are alternated between almost simultaneously. I'm usually fairly good with time skips but for most of the last 30 minutes I had no idea what time frame the scenes were occurring or even if the film's setting had left reality and was now entirely nightmare or imaginary. It has no sort of logical anachronic order and at many times seems random in it's placement of the flashbacks as there is no lead up to them. I think the problem most viewers who aren't used to Asian horror might face are with the drama elements of the film. There are really only a few jump scares, making it much more about atmosphere and character relationships than it is about a quick thrill. As stated above, the movie's frequent time skipping is its main weakness, but its' two part breakdown and drama is common of K-horror. I would not recommend it to people new to K-Horror because it is slowly paced compared to much American/Western horror. Do not go in expecting to jump. Regardless, it's a slightly above average K-horror with some interesting scenes and reveals at the end.As a side note: it has barely anything in common with the fairy tale of its' nomenclature; but that isn't a criticism, just likely a source of confusion for some.
Maz Murdoch (asda-man)
I wouldn't go expecting anything to do with the original fairytale. I was expecting a Korean horror twist on it like that fantastic, "Hansel & Gretel". I was expecting a vicious stepmother keeping her daughter captive and so on. Actually Cinderella has very loose references to the infamous tale. In fact, I would've scrapped the title altogether and called it something referring to vanity, because that's the theme that is most emphasised in the film.Cinderella is 2/3's of a good film. I found the first 40 minutes or so incredibly difficult to follow thanks to most of the characters looking the same and having very little development. The first 40 minutes don't work with what occurs for the remainder of the film when it finally finds it footing. It's quite tedious and confusing to see these friends getting killed off by a ghost after having plastic surgery for no apparent reason. The whole ghost-killer idea doesn't even really work that effectively until it's loosely developed in the finale. Even characters with no earlier development get killed off and were left wondering why and if we really care!However, the overall feel of the film changed at the first flashback where a pretty huge twist is revealed. It's highly engaging and then allows us to focus on the characters who really care about, the mother and her daughter. In its final moments the film almost becomes dream-like with the past merging with the present, but it remains utterly absorbing, even though it's incredibly difficult to work out what the hell is going on! The ending left me feeling completely bemused and I'd completely lost the plot. However, I did find it incredibly emotional and heart felt, allowing us to feel a great deal of sympathy for the characters, especially the mother.Aside for a few creepy moments, I wouldn't call Cinderella a full-blown horror film. It's more of a dream-like dark drama, thanks to the ghost idea being under-used and under-developed. The frustrating thing about the film is that it's full of fantastic twists and ideas, but explores them in ways which are needlessly confusing! The plot is also messy and is in need of character development, or character reduction.However, Cinderella is worth a watch. It's an engaging and emotional experience and has a heart, which is greatly lacking in modern American horror films. It also has a wonderful score and surprising twists to ensure that you're never bored. It's just a shame that the writing department was as ill conceived as it was. But, perhaps you're a highly intelligent person and can differentiate fantasy from reality and past from present. I for one can not!
massaster760
First off,Cinderella isn't about a pair of glass slippers, a Kindly Prince, or a Fairy God-Mother. What Cinderella is about, is Women's obsessions with their appearance and the terrifying lengths some women will go to keep their appearance beautiful.Cinderella tells the story of Hyunsu, a typical 17-year old girl, whose mother just happens to be a plastic surgeon. Hyunsu's friends frequently go to her mother for plastic surgeries, but then after wards the friends become obsessed with their faces, and eventually end up dead.I'm torn on this movie. While I do think it was a well-done piece of social commentary about women and their conceptions of beauty, the horror element wasn't really scary, the plot is jumbled, the editing needs some serious work, and the ending is all over the place.That being said, there are things I did like about this movie. The Score was great! It features a lot of great classical music, specifically, one of my favorite composers, Antonio Vivaldi. The cinematography was well-done, and I thought the characters were well-drawn out and the acting was good. Another thing that I liked, is that the film does a good job of pacing (I don't think I looked at my watch once!).The film itself, while failing to be a true horror movie, turns into more of a melodramatic film with supernatural overtones (kind of like Memento Mori). However, this may be the fault of overly ambitious packaging than what the director intended the film to be. The only thing that's really scary about this film is the motivations of the characters in their pursuit of beauty. And if you watch this film with that in mind, you probably won't feel as let down as I was.Also, if one of the reasons why you watch watch Asian Horror is for the gore/shock factor, than you probably won't like Cinderella. The packaging suggests a lot of gory face-slashing scenes, and while the film does have a few of these scenes, they are rather tame compared with what is typical of the genre. Cinderella's focus is not shocking scenes of facial mutilation, but melodrama centering on a Mother-Daughter relationship, and women's self-destructive pursuit of beauty.
gila_film
After watching 'Cinderella', I feel very deceiving, where this is more melodramatic rather than a shock horror. Yes, there's some appearances of a-long-haired-ghost, but the whole issue monopolizes the screen is the drama about a mother-daughter's relationship that is very resemblance of Hideo Nakata's Dark Water.Hyoon-su (Sin Se-kyeong) is raised by her single mother, a renowned plastic surgeon. She's living a very happy life, since her mother is caring her lovingly. But her life get a darker tone since one of her friend who's done a plastic surgery are found dead. Things get worse since she find a secret basement and her dark past is revealed. since then, her close relationship with her mother will never be the same.The direction from Bong Man-dae has some subtle moments and it has some generic horror atmosphere. The act is never perfectly fits, since this is a horror movie. Peoples are privilege to act surreal. The movie it self somewhat never fail to delivers the drama since horror it self is minor content of the movie. 'Cinderella' has a unique issue, dealing with women and their obsession of beauty. The depiction of human selfishness is quite profound. Alas it never has a clear resolution through the ending, while it clear that the horror gimmick is use only for scare tactic. The real transcendence of 'Cinderella' is the turmoil between mother-daughter. I think 'Cinderella are try it best to portray how a human to gain happiness could victimized other people. It rather moving as drama, but not satisfying enough to-be a good horror movie.