Epitaph (film)

Infobox Korean Film
name = Epitaph (The Last Breath)


director = Jung Sik
Jung Beom-sik
producer =
writer =
starring = Jin Ku
Kim Tae-woo
Kim Bo-kyeong
music =
distributor =
released = flagicon|South Korea August 1, 2007
runtime = 98 minutes
language = Korean
budget =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 1124378
hangul = 기담
hanja = 奇談
rr = "Gidam"
mr =

"Epitaph" (기담/奇談 - "Gidam") is a 2007 South Korean film directed by brothers Jung Sik and Jung Beom-sik. The movie is a horror film set in 1942, while South Korea was under the colonial rule of Japan. It is framed by scenes set in 1979.

Plot

Dr. Jung Nam finds a photo album dating back to his days as an intern at the Ansaeng Hospital. He thinks back to those days where he part of his soul died. In 1942, as a young medical intern, Jung-Nam's arranged marriage ends when his fiancee (whom he has never met) commits suicide. Later he is assigned to monitor the morgue late at night. There he falls in love with a corpse, that turns out to be his deceased fiancee. Soon other mysterious events take place in the hospital, involving a young girl haunted by ghosts and a serial killer targeting Japanese soldiers.

Critical Reception

Whilst "Epitaph" has not been widely reviewed in English-speaking press, the few critics who lent their pens to it express the almost uniform impression that the film has a certain derivative feel to it, incorporating numerous formulaic genre tactics from more famous films such as the Diassociative Identity Disorder plot-twist in "A Tale of Two Sisters" [http://koreanfilm.org/kfilm07.html#epitaph KoreanFilm.org review] of Epitaph by Kyu Hyun Kim, retrieved May 1, 2007] and the three-episode structure from "Three Extremes" and other similar examples; Slant Magazine reviewer Nick Schager comes to the dramatic conclusion that the genre "cannibalizes itself until there's nothing left except the tattered remains of once-effective conventions and the rapidly fading memories of superior scares gone by." [http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=3540 Slant Magazine review] of Epitaph by Nick Schager, published March 17, 2008, retrieved May 1, 2008.] Schager also calls attention to the convoluted plot, in his words characterised by "jumbled chronology, dull repetitions, corny otherworldly melodrama".

Nonetheless, the cinematography, directing and acting by K-Horror mainstays Kim Eung-su and Ye Soo-jeong have earned the film praise as "visually as well as intellectually impressive, with some gorgeous cinematography and wonderfully composed shots" [http://www.beyondhollywood.com/epitaph-2007-movie-review/ BeyondHollywood review] of Epitaph written by James Mudge, published January 6, 2008, retrieved May 1, 2008] and "a significant contribution to rehabilitating K-horror's international reputation" [http://koreanfilm.org/kfilm07.html#epitaph KoreanFilm.org review] of Epitaph by Kyu Hyun Kim, retrieved May 1, 2007] .

The site has not yet accrued enough reviews for a rating at either RottenTomatoes.com or Metacritic.

Awards

The film's production designers, Min-bok Lee and Yu-jeong Kim, were nominated for a 2008 Asian Film Award for the work in "Epitaph", although the award eventually went to "The Sun Also Rises".

ee also

*List of Korean language films
*Korean cinema
*List of Korea-related topics

References

External links

* [http://www.gidam.kr/ Official site] Ko icon