I don’t frequently get excited about horror films but
White:
The Melody of the Curse was somewhat of an exception. I had consistently heard good
things about its directors, Kim Gok and Kim Sun, a pair who have been churning out
low-budget indie horrors since 2003. Sadly, I have not had a chance to see any
of them yet. White is their first big budget, commercial film, and it is also
fairly ambitious, especially from a technical standpoint despite employing a
number of done-to-death (excuse the pun) clichés. The other reason I was
curious to see this film was its subject matter, as the narratives takes place
within the fiercely competitive K-Pop milieu. While I do not know very much about this global Hallyu phenomenon it does fascinate me and upon hearing about this
project, I felt the topic particularly conducive to horror.
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| K-Pop idols |
The story gets underway very succinctly and involves a pop band
which has fallen from grace. One of them, Eun-joo (Ham Eun-jeong), a former
back-up dancer, serves as the team leader and is ostracized due to her
background. Her benefactor arranges for them to record in a new studio, which
is fancy and high tech but harbors a mysterious past. Eun-joo discovers a
secret compartment behind a mirror in the dance hall and within it an old
videocassette featuring an old K-Pop routine. This becomes the group’s new
song, which, as the title suggests, is indeed cursed. One by one, each girl who
is given the coveted center position is subjected to awful accidents and a bit
of haunting for good measure. Eun-joo seeks to uncover the secret of the tape
with a little help from her friend before it’s too late.
One thing about horror films is that everyone who watches
them is looking for something different: some want a good story; others a few
good scares; and others still are in it for the blood and guts. White delivers
on all three of these but probably not to an ultimately satisfying degree for
any. I appreciated the K-Pop setting with its fan obsession and
competition between performers but the story that is set within it features a too-good
to be true haunted location, a cursed video, and a long-haired and decomposed
ghost seeking revenge. This is very unoriginal stuff and a little
disappointing. Next, while there are some good scares, some of the set pieces
are borderline ridiculous and have the potential of eliciting an undesired
reaction. Finally, there is some slightly gruesome violence but these moments are
infrequent and lack cinematic flair, which is odd considering how well made the
film is.
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| Strong use of colours and production design |
For me some of the strongest sequences were those in between
the scares which were either investigatory, expository, or relationship-based.
One reason they worked quite well is that they are so well shot. It is not
often with this kind of film that the production values prove a real asset, A
Tale of Two Sisters (2003) comes to mind, but that was always designed as a
‘prestige film’. The colors, framing, and especially the use of the locations
were at times beautiful, foreboding, and menacing. The set pieces themselves
also display strong mise-en-scène but I found it less convincing than the other
scenes. This may have been because there was a tendency to overdo it, mostly on the editing side.
Rarely, in my opinion, does fancy, hyperkinetic editing add something genuine
to a film. As much as I can appreciate its value for horror, which is so often
low-budget, quick cuts all too often rob a scene of tension, which needs to be
earned.
There isn’t too much to say about the performances, which
mostly veer into caricature, but everyone seems to handles themselves
relatively well here. A couple of the starlets are also K-Pop singers, I wonder
if this added anything to their performances. Arguably, not a great deal is required for these kinds of performances.
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| Generic staple, à la ring |
Despite the reliance on very generic staples, especially of local Asian horror cinema, in my eyes
White was a cut above recent K-Horror entries, a lot of which have been disappointing, save for a a few gems like
Possessed (2009) and the brilliant
Bedevilled (2010), although the latter probably lends itself more to the revenge thriller categorization. However, given people's very different tastes when it comes to horror, I would suggest that you would do best to approach this one with caution. I enjoyed myself and am looking forward to the next Kim gok and Kim Sun film, hopefully they will give us something a little more ambitious. Perhaps that is why there is something lacking with
White, at times it feels like a test run.
