Hansel and Gretel (2007 film)

Hansel and Gretel (Korean: 헨젤과 그레텔) is a 2007 South Korean horror film directed by Yim Pil-sung.[2]

Hansel and Gretel
Poster for Hansel and Gretel (2007)
Hangul헨젤과 그레텔
Revised RomanizationHenjelgwa geuretel
McCune–ReischauerHenjelgwa kŭret‘el
Directed byYim Pil-sung
Produced byChoi Jae-won
Seo Woo-sik
Written byKim Min-sook
Yim Pil-sung
StarringChun Jung-myung
Eun Won-jae
Shim Eun-kyung
Jin Ji-hee
Music byLee Byung-woo
CinematographyKim Ji-yong
Edited byKim Sun-min
Distributed byCJ Entertainment
Release date
  • December 27, 2007 (2007-12-27)
Running time
117 minutes
CountrySouth Korea
LanguageKorean
Box officeUS$2,206,625[1]

Plot

Eun-soo, a salesman, is driving his car along Highway 69 while on the phone with his pregnant girlfriend, Hae-young. They get into an argument, leading him into a car-crash. He wakes up in a dark forest and meets a young girl, Young-hee, who takes him to her house called the "House of Happy Children". There, he meets her parents, older brother Man-bok, and younger sister Jung-soon. He notices the children following his every move and makes a failed attempt to leave. The parents leave, telling him to take care of the kids.

However, he finds the mother hiding in the attic; she tells him that they are not the children's real parents. Their car broke down on Highway 69 and they met Jung-soon the same way. She tells him not to believe the children. Man-bok brings a couple to the house: the man, Byun is a friendly deacon. Eun-soo discovers that the meat they'd eaten was actually the flesh of the missing father while his wife had been turned into a china doll. He also notices that Byun's wife disappeared after accusing Jung-soon of stealing her ring. He secretly follows Man-bok into the woods, making a trail of breadcrumbs so he won't get lost. He discovers Byun's wife has been turned into an oak tree.

Man-bok stops in front of a mysterious door and his face changes to an old man's face. When he leaves, Eun-soo enters the room and looks over the notebook that the siblings have been working on throughout the film, realizing that the children are over thirty years old. He learns that Man-bok has the power of telekinesis and can make people do things by imagining the actions: he is the one who turned the earlier women into a china doll and oak tree. Eun-soo sees his own drawing in the notebook and becomes determined to stop the children before they murder him. Back at the house, he discovers that Byun is actually a religious cult leader trying to kill the children. He knocks Byun out and listens to the children's side of the story from Young-hee.

The kids used to live in an orphanage called the "House of Happy Children", where the abusive caretaker raped the girls and beat the boys. Man-bok discovered his powers during Christmas, when he made Santa Claus arrive. Santa told the siblings of their powers and gave them a Hansel and Gretel storybook. After they witnessed their friend Seung-ho being beaten to death, they wished to stop the caretaker, only to find everyone dead and the caretaker about to burn them in the fireplace. Man-bok used his power to kill the caretaker. In the present, the children use their powers to make Byun kill himself when he rises to kill Eun-soo.

The children ask Eun-soo to stay with them. Eun-soo however wishes to reunite with his loved ones and offers instead to take them with him. They refuse, believing adults will always be bad. Eun-soo argues that if they continue their doings, they will end up the same. Young-hee tells him to burn the notebook so he can leave and he does so before Man-bok can stop him. Eun-soo then wakes up where he first met Young-hee. He walks to the road and sees the police, who are amazed at his survival and tell him the tragic stories of Highway 69.

A year later on Christmas, Eun-soo has married Hae-young and they have a baby boy. As he goes out to buy milk, he wonders if his encounter was a dream. His collection of news clippings of Byun (revealed to be a serial killer), who is missing, suggests it was real. He comes across the children's notebook. The pages are all blank except the last one, which shows the three children holding hands and smiling. They have given up and realized that they don't need parents to be a family. Eun-soo looks out the window and outside in the snow, Man-bok, Young-hee, and Jung-soon go back into the woods.

Cast and characters
The protagonist of the story. He got into a car accident and was found by one of the children in the nearby woods and taken to their home. He told the children how much he loved them and he wanted to stay, but his pregnant girlfriend and sick mother needed him. The movie centers around him trying to leave, and the events that keep him from going back home.
He is the oldest of the children, an antagonist of the film. He'd lived with his sisters in the house since he was 5, and because his father used to beat him up, he's still a bit gloomy. He has the power to control things with his mind, or telekinesis. Each time he kills someone, he drew the death of the person in detail in his notebook. He always has a mysterious aura and very bad temper. Throughout the movie, Man-bok appears to be a 13-year-old. But apparently, as Eun-soo found out in an old book, he was born in 1959.
She was the one who found Eun-soo. She has a tendency to keep Man-bok from getting too angry. She and her sister tried to run away from the orphanage but came back because they couldn't get out. She often sleepwalks and one time in her sleep, she told Eun-soo, "He always tells me that I'm pretty..." referring to the "Father" of the orphanage who would to rape young girls, like her. Young-hee was born in 1960, a year younger than Man-bok.
She's 7 years old by that time they killed the caretaker, and was told by every adult that she's a bit weak. She hates grown-ups. She liked to laugh and play with her dolls, which she always tortured. She can bring imaginary things alive much like her brother can. When Eun-soo told them a story of fairies, she put down a doll and suddenly it was alive and flew to the sky. She and Young-hee could see it, but Eun-soo didn't notice it at all, suggesting that adults are unable to see things like this. According to her file, Jung-soon was born in 1965.
Another antagonist of the story. He and his wife get lost in the woods, eventually meeting Man-bok. He appears to be friendly, but is revealed to be a leader of a religious cult and a serial killer. He thought the children were Satan's children and ends up trying to kill them. It turned out when he was younger, he killed his own father, stating "I sent my father to heaven" as he put it. He slit his throat when the three children use their telekinesis to get him to kill himself.
  • Lydia Park as Kyung-sook
Byun's wife, who intended to take away the children's jewelry. After she blamed Jung-soon for her lost jewelry, Man-bok turned her into an oak tree.

Trivia
  • The second time Eun-soo tries to get out, he came back to the house and asked the kids, who were playing, for help. Young-hee said, "You should've marked your way with breadcrumbs," pointing to the original story where Hansel would use breadcrumbs as marks to get back home. In the scenes after, Eun-soo is taking Young-hee's advice when following Man-bok into the woods.
  • Kyung-sook, after stopping into the house, noticed some jewels and whispered, "Then, there must be a pumpkin wagon and red shoes somewhere." Referring to the fairytales Cinderella and The Red Shoes (which coincidentally were both adapted into South Korean horror films).
  • There is another scrapbook which Man-bok had and it contained pictures of them playing in it, but until the end of the movie it didn't tell what the story had to do with the book. The book was shown in the flashbacks (when Man-bok told the new father about the scrapbook and showed it to him) and when the deacon looked over some pages and found a knife.
  • The children throw the caretaker of the orphanage into an oven and burn him alive. This is nearly identical to the Witch's death in Hansel and Gretel

Festivals

International release
  • United Kingdom: January 16, 2009
  • Canada: March 6, 2009 (Quebec & Montréal); March 27, 2009 (Toronto); April 24, 2009 (Vancouver)
  • France: April 1, 2009

Reviews
  • From Calum Waddell, Fangoria: "...now you can add Hansel and Gretel to the list of instant classics. This freaky fable manages to outdo even the likes of Pan's Labyrinth and The Orphanage in its presentation of a bold and beautiful, but still downright terrifying, adult nightmare. See it and prepare to be amazed. It is one of the year’s best."
  • From Rob Daniel, Sky Movies: "...likely to become one of the year’s freshest, most memorable horror movies. Stylish, imaginative, and with a third act story twist, this is yet further proof that Korea currently stands as Asia’s premiere film factory. ... this delightfully grim horror is worth seeking out. Just follow the breadcrumb trail of positive reviews."
  • From X, Twitchfilm: "It’s bizarre, deliriously creative and joyously grotesque... Every small detail shines... visually arresting. It one of those films that use every inch of film stock in a creative way, convey the right vibes, and set the whole thing on fire with their power."
  • From AnthroFred, Slasherpool: "A Tale of Two Sisters meets Pan's Labyrinth in this dark fairy tale that breaths some fresh air into the South Korean horror industry. Hansel and Gretel is one of the most powerful movies I've seen in a long time. It’s pure genius."
  • From Andre Koh, The UrbanWire: "Good acting aside, Hansel and Gretel looks good to watch, boasting great set design, creating fantasy-like visuals that go hand in hand with the impressive cinematography."
  • From Rob Nelson, Variety: "...effective and handsomely produced, Hansel and Gretel puts the "grim" in Grimm while placing South Korean director Yim Phil-sung on the shortlist of Pan's Labyrinth emulators to trust."
Other Reviews
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References
  1. "Box office by Country: Hansel and Gretel". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2012-06-04
  2. "K-FILM REVIEWS: 헨젤과 그레텔 (Hansel and Gretel)". Twitch Film. 26 August 2008. Archived from the original on 5 February 2011.
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