NYAFF 2011: HAUNTERS Review (Charles' Take)

Looking around online, I kept expecting to find out that the psychic thriller Haunters was based on an existing manga--or since it's Korean, manhwa--title. It has all the hallmarks of a high-concept ripped from the page, and I challenge you to tell me this doesn't read like one of Toho's summer manga-to-screen adaptations: a mysterious, evil, mind-controlling psychic young man kills and steals with his power, and only a good-hearted young man whose resistant to his power can stop him. Cue familiar but bland actors in the lead, maybe a pop song or two, a level of gloss on top of some dogdy CG and you've got your thin, mostly empty blockbuster. The problem with my labored (and intentionally broad) comparison is that Haunters is really, really good, elevated by leads invested in their parts, a plot that is (mostly) tightly focused and well-realized, minimal effects that serve the film, and a true heart to the movie that's frequently missing from the big summer product in nearly all territories.

To elaborate on that plot a bit: Gang Dong-Won (Secret Reunion, The Duelist) spends his young adult years using his ability control the minds and bodies of people caught in his line of sight to kill, steal, and survive. This young man is so thoroughly alone in the world, that he's convinced himself that it's him against everyone else. Save for a scene set during the character's childhood, writer-director Kim Min-Suk's script doesn't do much to make the young man sympathetic, but he also doesn't make him cartoonishly evil. He's doesn't cackle or preen, he's just angry and alone and that's metastasized into a kind of casual hate.

There are so many blanks around this character that make him intriguing--for instance there's no attempt to explain away his power or why he has a prosthetic leg. And while the IMDB insists that his character has a name, I don't recall it being uttered once in the film. This has the effect of making him feel like some kind of horrible thing unleashed upon the world, something new and terrible that can't be easily explained away.

On the other side of the movie is Kyu-Nam (Ko Soo), who we first meet working at a junkyard alongside a multi-ethnic group of immigrants. Early scenes with Kyu-Nam almost make it seem as though he's mentally challenged but as the story progresses, we see that he's just a bit more deliberate than the people around him, and the world is far more black and white. After a series of minor catastrophes, Kyu-Nam gets a job in a kindly loan shark's office (Byeon Hie-Bong, The Host, Memories of Murder), who's scarce on details but needs someone to work the front of his office after money goes missing that he simply can't account for.

This set of circumstances put Kyu-Nam directly in the path of the malevolent psychic, leading the latter to learn that his power doesn't work on the former. I love the scene where the two characters discover each other's nature: Kyu-Nam, through his simple goodness is outraged that someone like the psychic can inflict his brand of horror on the world, while the psychic is frightened, and then angry that there's something in the world that is resistant to his power, the one thing about him that has allowed him to survive all these years.

I think the simple lack of ambiguity works in the movie's favor--it's not "grown-up" fare, and is squarely aimed at teens and slightly younger, but for all that it takes care with its hero, makes you care about him, makes the villain truly villainous and earns the audiences shock and horror at his actions.

Gang Dong-Won plays both the physical frailty and mental steeliness of the character with skill. Consider how he casually kills several characters throughout the movie: no cheap theatrics, just the cold, terrible snuffing out of human lives because he can, because, they mean almost nothing to him in the simple arithmetic of his life.

Along the same lines, Kyu-Nam's character could, in less fortunate circumstances be exasperatingly one-note, but it's a credit to the script and the performance that we keep learning about the character without the benefit of backstory and simply discover him through his action: he finds the strength to do the right thing because it doesn't occur to him to ever do otherwise. His final scene in the film, however unlikely, however improbable is absolutely true to the character.

If I've sold you the movie is a flawless masterpiece, it isn't: the pacing drags a little in the last act and the cat and mouse aspect of the film is by necessity one-sided given that Kyu-Nam isn't nearly as clever as the villain. But that simple alchemy of character and concept absolves all sins in one of the most elementally enjoyable movies I've seen in a while.

Haunters is screening as part of the 10th Annual New York Asian Film Festival on Wednesday, July 6th. You can find out more information at NYAFF website.