Nonureva
Really Surprised!
Protraph
Lack of good storyline.
Matrixiole
Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.
Stephanie
There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
starsybyll
The story revolves around Hyun-soo and her mother, plastic surgeon Yoon- hee who have a very close and loving relationship. The first portion is relatively straight-forward body horror involving an unknown ghost causing the friends of Hyun-soo, who have undergone plastic surgery, to go mad and mutilate their faces. Meanwhile, Hyun-soo investigates her home and discovers a photo of a badly burned child with her name. The second half of the film revolves around the story of how Hyun-soo was burned and how she ended up with a new face. Yoon-hee took in a lost girl after Hyun-soo's accident and, after a time, decides to remove her face and transplant it to Hyun-soo. Yoon-hee then keeps the second girl locked up in the basement for years where she eventually hangs herself, returning as a ghost to haunt the family.The most prominent issue with this film is the tendency it has to skip around in time with no warning and for no purpose. The second portion involving the other Hyun-soo is particularly confusing as many different points in time are alternated between almost simultaneously. I'm usually fairly good with time skips but for most of the last 30 minutes I had no idea what time frame the scenes were occurring or even if the film's setting had left reality and was now entirely nightmare or imaginary. It has no sort of logical anachronic order and at many times seems random in it's placement of the flashbacks as there is no lead up to them. I think the problem most viewers who aren't used to Asian horror might face are with the drama elements of the film. There are really only a few jump scares, making it much more about atmosphere and character relationships than it is about a quick thrill. As stated above, the movie's frequent time skipping is its main weakness, but its' two part breakdown and drama is common of K-horror. I would not recommend it to people new to K-Horror because it is slowly paced compared to much American/Western horror. Do not go in expecting to jump. Regardless, it's a slightly above average K-horror with some interesting scenes and reveals at the end.As a side note: it has barely anything in common with the fairy tale of its' nomenclature; but that isn't a criticism, just likely a source of confusion for some.
Tokyo-1997
I have heard many bad reviews about this film. I wonder why. I thought this movie was made very well. Everything was explained clearly, the storyline was very original and just great. Even the idea used in this movie was fantastic. Not all horror movies need to be scary, they just need to be entertaining. This movie, in terms of the storyline, might have even been more effective than A tale of two sisters, because the storyline is extremely clear. You know what is going on throughout the whole film. Even the ending was quite unexpected. Even this film might get extremely dramatic towards the end of the movie, there are tons of emotion of the characters very well used in this movie. This movie has a tremendously strong character development, which I personally find it being much more effective than shows such as Noriko's dinner table. I cannot understand why this film is so lowly rated. I hardly find any flaws in this film. The first half of this film was tremendously scary, especially the scene where the girl looks into the mirror and saw blood covered over her face. That scene was much more effective than even shows such as wishing stairs. The scenes during the first half of the movie are tremendously scary, though the second half was very dramatic. Hence, the building up of tension and fear was done very badly in this movie. It does not matter. This film succeeds in both being very terrifying and very touching to me. This film is very original as well. Highly recommended. Score:9/10
slayrrr666
"Cinderella" isn't that bad but could've been much better.**SPOILERS**Preparing to undergo surgery, Suk-yung, (Jeon So-min) tries not to let her fear stop her from going through with it, despite surgeon Yoon-hee, (To Ji-won) trying to qualm them. When her friend Hyun-su, (Shin Se-kyeong) tries to gather her other friends Sung-aum, (Yu Da-in) and Mae-wong, (Ahn Ah-yung) that also had work done at the office, for a birthday party when they suddenly start behaving weirdly and begin to carve themselves according to the surgery performed on them. Convinced it has something to do with her mother, she confronts her about it only to have a terrifying secret revealed to her in the process. Realizing that all of the events in the past as well as what's happening to her friends are related to this secret, he races to solve it before more friends are injured.The Good News: There was some good stuff to this one from time-to-time. One of the best features is that, when it starts to get going there's some good scenes. One of the best here is the rather fun and entertaining birthday party scenes, which really don't have a whole lot really wrong. There's some creepy images once it utilizes them, from the image of the lit birthday-cake moving through the darkened room to the rather bizarre freak-outs and the darkened room when the power goes out causing them to also freak-out is a pretty entertaining scene. Coupled with the different visions in the mirrors featuring the distorted face, either with severe scalpel marks or burn wounds is an overall great scene. Another really fun scene is the fantastic scene in art class, which starts with the hand appearing in the paint before dragging the victim head-first into it, only when returning to it later on showing no signs of anything happening. When that's stumbled upon later, the graphic face-cutting that resulted in the interim makes the scene really stand-out. Other minor scenes, including the ghostly visions at the beginning that may-or-may-not be there, the nightmare with her in the facial mask or also run into quite enjoyable scenes and are definitely pretty enjoyable as a whole. The back-story to this is also really good, with there being two great parts that come from it. Firstly is the awesome twist that's revealed, which is definitely something that isn't seen coming and really shouldn't, to a rather inventive way of finding out about it, it's a really great flashback that manages to hold more significance than initially expected. As well, there's some fun action to be had as well with the exploding car and the race to the hospital, which really help this one out considerably as well. The last plus here is the kills, which are pretty graphic and brutal. There's several faces that are sliced up with knives, a burnt victim, a stabbing in the arm and more, which while it doesn't sound like a lot definitely has it's moments. These here are what work for the film.The Bad News: There was a couple of problems to this one that hold it down somewhat. One of the film's biggest flaws is the fact that the film makes utterly no sense at all. From the revelation to the fact that it's done at the very end of the film, and the big angle where it's just so confusingly done that nothing here is given anything close to a definitive answer. This is due to the film's incessant and irritating problem of skipping around in time so much that there's hardly any way of knowing where anyone is at in a certain point in time, since it goes from the present time to the flashback that explains everything to seeing what happened with the friends without any change in doing anything new to explain that it's skipping around in time to do this. It all looks the same, to the wardrobe to the outfits and appearance as well as the technical look of the film, and this just ends up not really doing the film any favors in clarifying issues at all. The fact that the film just sort of ends without really doing anything else is a big part of that. This one doesn't have a real clear-cut way of ending, just sorting of featuring a series of scenes that pass by without any dialog whatsoever which makes it impossible to tell what's going on, and then the series of events themselves make even less sense. All in all, it's a very problematic issue. The last issue with this one is the fact that there's not a whole lot of scenes in the middle that are really enjoyable. It's just a whole lot of rather slow-going scenes that rarely match up with any kind of excitement or momentum into the film, which manages to make them come across so dull that it makes these scenes even harder to care for. The constant scenes of her working out with her mother, her friends sniping at each other in art class or at the pool, or the seemingly endless scenes of the group talking over what's happening are just a part of this, and they all take this one down.The Final Verdict: Not that bad overall, but there's enough good points and bad ones to make this film an even washout. Pretty much only there for the hardcore Asian fanatics or those who might find this story interesting, while those who are put off by the film's problems should heed caution.Rated UR/R: Graphic Violence and some Language
gila_film
After watching 'Cinderella', I feel very deceiving, where this is more melodramatic rather than a shock horror. Yes, there's some appearances of a-long-haired-ghost, but the whole issue monopolizes the screen is the drama about a mother-daughter's relationship that is very resemblance of Hideo Nakata's Dark Water.Hyoon-su (Sin Se-kyeong) is raised by her single mother, a renowned plastic surgeon. She's living a very happy life, since her mother is caring her lovingly. But her life get a darker tone since one of her friend who's done a plastic surgery are found dead. Things get worse since she find a secret basement and her dark past is revealed. since then, her close relationship with her mother will never be the same.The direction from Bong Man-dae has some subtle moments and it has some generic horror atmosphere. The act is never perfectly fits, since this is a horror movie. Peoples are privilege to act surreal. The movie it self somewhat never fail to delivers the drama since horror it self is minor content of the movie. 'Cinderella' has a unique issue, dealing with women and their obsession of beauty. The depiction of human selfishness is quite profound. Alas it never has a clear resolution through the ending, while it clear that the horror gimmick is use only for scare tactic. The real transcendence of 'Cinderella' is the turmoil between mother-daughter. I think 'Cinderella are try it best to portray how a human to gain happiness could victimized other people. It rather moving as drama, but not satisfying enough to-be a good horror movie.