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[HanCinema's Film Review] "A Bloody Aria" + DVD Giveaway

Married opera professor Yeong-seon (played by Lee Byung-joon) is having a leisurely drive with former student In-jeong (played by Cha Ye-ryun), making a few misguided attempts to impress her. It isn't long before we learn that Yeong-seon is a complete jerk, and actually kind of monstrous even. So it's with a sense of gratification that Yeong-seon ends up getting waylaid in the middle of nowhere, and forced to make conversation with various rural Korean rednecks.

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At times violent, "A Bloody Aria" is more accurately described as a movie about the travails of insincere politeness. While Yeong-seon is obviously of a much better social rank than his tormentors, and is even briefly able to intimidate them into pliance, these guys aren't idiots. They can tell when they're being talked down to, and when they have the upper hand, and really, really hate being treated like uncivilized people. So they resort to uncivilized behavior when treated as such.

My reading is a tad forgiving. Early on we're introduced to Hyeon-jae (played by Kim Shi-hoo) and his rather unfortunate fate. Still, by the end of "A Bloody Aria" all sorts of weird plot twists have completely turned our understanding of the character relationships upside down. But what were we expecting when Yeong-seon and In-jeong part company over a scene ripped straight from an exploitation flick, yet is clearly being played for laughs?

That's the essentially bizarre tone that writer/director Won Shin-yun is going for here- making the action look like something it's not, until the characters become self-aware enough to turn the movie into exactly the horror story Yeong-seon is dreading. Fear comes more from the anticipation of what will come than what has actually happened. When we finally get to all the cool violence, sure it's brutal, yet it also seemed rather preventable. At least, until the last few plot twists beg the question of what anyone's plan was.

We do get the odd contrast of most of the characters getting off relatively easy considering all the horrible actions they'd committed against one another. And yet I'm oddly satisfied with this, since once we see just how horrible a person Yeong-seon is, it's legitimately difficult to like any other character less than him. Bear in mind that Yeong-seon first provokes the ire of his psychological tormentors when they start to wonder whether he's committed suicide- Yeong-seon does not dissuade them of this notion until the absolute last minute.

Considering that "A Bloody Aria" takes place almost entirely on a single riverbank, there's a fairly broad range of emotion at play. We're basically just watching an overlong awkward dinner party where the guests really want to leave but are afraid of acting rude, and in the process of being taciturn anger their hosts far more than would have seemed likely if they'd just acted like normal. But then, when "normal" behavior for a person involves mouthing off to the cops and misguided flirting, well, all I'm saying is that aside from the Hyeon-jae issue, I was rooting for the rednecks.

Review by William Schwartz

"A Bloody Aria" is directed by Won Shin-yun and features Han Suk-kyu, Lee Moon-sik, Oh Dal-soo, Cha Ye-ryun, Kim Shi-hoo, Lee Byung-joon and Jung Kyung-ho-I.

 

Available on VCD from YESASIA and Amazon Video

Amazon Video
Amazon Video
VCD (English Subtitled)
VCD (English Subtitled)

 

A Bloody Aria DVD

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