Develiker terrible... so disappointed.

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

MartinHafer I previously reviewed "The Happiness of the Katakuris" and have recommended it to all my friends. It's a wonderfully strange concoction from Takashi Miike--the Japanese director who seems quite adept in many genres. The film is a wacky fantasy musical--complete with dancing zombies, significant portions done in claymation as well as a Japanese man who claims to be Queen Elizabeth's unknown child who ALSO works for the CIA! It's strange beyond belief, but it also manages to be a heartfelt family movie that strongly advocates traditional values...and LOTS of accidental deaths. Imagine my surprise, then, when he told me that this film is NOT an original but was first made in South Korea as "The Quiet Family"! Naturally I HAD to see this original and fortunately he sent me a copy! I was so excited to see this film that I could practically burst!When the film begins, you might also think this South Korean film is a musical--as it begins with a weird hip-hop version of an old Herb Alpert song from the 1960s! And, oddly, throughout the film there are a lot of odd American tunes--including one from the Partridge Family. BUT, and this is important, it was NOT a musical--and this was very disappointing. In the Miike film, there were dancing zombies and other wondrous musical delights. But none of this is in The Quiet Family. I could live with this...though I missed the zombies. But what I couldn't believe was that this dark comedy really wasn't all that funny. Yes, it had an original idea but it clearly did NOT make the most of it. Miike and his writers clearly were able to transform a rather average comedy into gold--and often that meant significantly changing the original script.Like the remake, the film is about a family that owns a small hotel in the middle of nowhere. Because of this, their business is failing--as the long-promised new highway has yet to be built and they have no customers for the longest time. Then, out of the blue, comes the first customer and the family is ecstatic. However, when they check on their guest the next morning, they find that the man had killed himself in the room...and he'd used his room key to do the deed! Fearing that this awful exposure would kill any chance at making the business a success, they decide to bury the body. Guess what happens with the hotel's next guests? Yep...they die as well. And, since they've already buried one guest, burying a couple more won't be so bad...right?!At this point, the plot of the two films are very, very similar--though the deaths of the guests in "The Quiet Family" aren't really that funny- -but they sure are in "The Happiness of the Katakuris". This sort of trend continues through the film, as often the South Korean film fails to capitalize on potentially darkly funny situations. Additionally, the film makes a huge mistake later--it does not keep the viewer liking the innocent family who just want to make a go of their new business. Instead, some of the family members are pretty awful and so loses its charm and slowly fizzles. While "The Quiet Family" is not a bad film, it is a definite disappointment considering that I first saw the PERFECT remake. The bottom line is that this is just a very rare case of a film where the remake is much, much better--funnier and actually much more original because of all the insane things they interject into the old plot. I almost always prefer the originals unless there is a serious flaw in it. In the case of "The Quiet Family", there were several serious flaws.

princebansal1982 Choyonghan kajok is quite original and weird black comedy. Choyonghan kajok, like a lot of Korean movies is quite gruesome in nature, though the recent Korean movies have surpassed it by a huge margin. This movie has Min-sik Choi in a good role, but nowhere near the greatness of his more recent roles. Everybody else has done a fine job, but nobody really stands out.Choyonghan kajok is about a family own a lodge in a remote area. When there first customer dies they decide to bury him to avoid publicity. But things just go on escalating. Choyonghan kajok has a fresh premise and keeps the audience hooked in throughout. A Nice Effort.

refresh daemon The Quiet Family is Kim Jiwoon's debut feature. Having had much appreciation for his later works, I thought I'd track down his earliest one to see if he had it from the start. Crafting a somewhat black comedy about a family that runs a struggling lodge in the woods, I have to say that he largely succeeded.The story is about the titular family, who have yet to have a guest. Of course, as it turns out, their first few guests happen to have a habit of perishing. A series of increasingly trouble cover-ups and escalations occur until all hell breaks loose. And sure, that sounds pretty vague, but while the film isn't terribly laugh out loud, I do have to admit I was well engaged and amused during the majority of it. I think the strength of the films lies in its suspense: we empathize with the family and despite their bad decisions leading to some of their troubles, their mostly hard luck cases and so we struggle with them as they try to keep their inn running amidst the increasing body count.I think there is a weakness and it's that the epilogue, although amusing, is a bit logically distorted. It's like a twist that was aborted, leading to a rather nonsensical sense. Sort of takes the air out of the film.Actor's all do an impressive job, really, and their chemistry with each other is great. Their ability to deliver the rather straight-faced brand of humor necessary for this kind of comedy helps keep the edge in the blackness of the comedy and lend to the believability of the story. Production values are a little weak, being a film shot before the industry burst open in Corea, however, the direction and art of the film is unmistakably strong and helps give the film an air of aesthetic strength that it might not have had otherwise.Kim's film is rather entertaining and while it won't please those who don't like black comedies, it's otherwise a sometimes suspenseful, mostly amusing and surprisingly engaging piece. Like Kim's other films, it doesn't aim at art cinema, but rather appears to be a strong distillation and synthesis of the dark/horror-comedy genre. And for that, I can recommend it. 8/10.

Lagomorph This film manages to strike a very tricky balance between humor and suspense. It's funny and tense all at the same time, from start to finish.It's visually appealing, with interesting characters, and high production values. The acting is uniformly superb, and the plot manages to incorporate good, old fashioned suspense traditions and tropes while remaining fresh and interesting.If you get a chance to see this, do.