A Bloody Aria

This may sound like a predictable scenario, but this plot nudges the viewer in the wrong direction at every turn. Director Won Shin-young takes the well-known basic elements of the horror genre and twists them even further, setting us up for something great. The key is the disorienting sense of humor that accompanies even the most violent moments. Just as Bong-young teases his hapless victims, Won Shin-young plays with the audience, alternating moments of tension with humorous releases, making us feel both pleasantly and uncomfortably inappropriate, and making us feel uncomfortable. I'm playing cat and mouse with him. Because in the end, it comes down to who can be the most proud. The film's defining pastoral and animal images (a soaring bird of prey in the opening shot, or a later scene in which an insensitive thug slaughters another bird of prey with a baseball bat) hint at an important truth: is showing. Obey no one else as a brutal natural law. Most disturbingly, the final scene suggests that the characters who should best represent order and civilization may also be the most barbaric.