R-Point is essentially a small horror film that pays homage to such Japanese horrors as The Grudge or The Ring, but then also to classics such as Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, and is a film I rate highly as an enjoyable and effective wartime ghost story.
A disgraced Lieutenant, a stone cold Sergeant and a literal Dirty Dozen of the South Korean army's VD infected. You can tell that the brass doesn't care whether these men come back or not. They're expendable and the mission is damned from the start anyway. The only reason they're there is the incentive that if they complete the mission, they get to go home.
Their mission is to enter R-Point, a strategic vantage point on an island between South Korea and Vietnam and find the missing men sent there and having disappeared after sending a very strange distress call back to HQ.
R-Point is a cheap little horror film that makes the very most of what it does have to offer, and that is atmosphere and suspense. The visuals are beautiful, the location is beautiful and even if the dialogue is a bit silly at times, the actors do a damn fine job considering I don't know any of them.
From start to finish, R-Point subtly builds tension and atmosphere and plays on the imagination using the power of suggestion, allowing for multiple agendas and outcomes to come of what happens throughout.
Conventionally it doesn't do anything new but admirably improves an old and exploited genre that has seen a small comeback with the likes of Deathwatch and Outpost, relying on human drama, intrigue and multiple strand narratives to keep the audience guessing as to how the end will happen rather than what the outcome will most typically be.
Untypically, its characters are all very different people with complex pasts and concerns in their lives. No one is typically maddened or emotionally disturbed by the war. In fact it is highly suggested that the toughest of the platoon's soldiers are liars who have barely even seen combat and are terrified by the prospect.
Having said all that, I feel that the climax is a bit of a let down, in the sense that so much tension built is spent on revealing the not so clever conclusion. It saves itself by being kind of creepy and I suppose by giving a nod to classic Asian ghost stories. But it seemed like it was going to be different and it gave no real surprises.
Still a fantastic film and very well made but don't hold your breath... if you can help it!
A disgraced Lieutenant, a stone cold Sergeant and a literal Dirty Dozen of the South Korean army's VD infected. You can tell that the brass doesn't care whether these men come back or not. They're expendable and the mission is damned from the start anyway. The only reason they're there is the incentive that if they complete the mission, they get to go home.
Their mission is to enter R-Point, a strategic vantage point on an island between South Korea and Vietnam and find the missing men sent there and having disappeared after sending a very strange distress call back to HQ.
R-Point is a cheap little horror film that makes the very most of what it does have to offer, and that is atmosphere and suspense. The visuals are beautiful, the location is beautiful and even if the dialogue is a bit silly at times, the actors do a damn fine job considering I don't know any of them.
From start to finish, R-Point subtly builds tension and atmosphere and plays on the imagination using the power of suggestion, allowing for multiple agendas and outcomes to come of what happens throughout.
Conventionally it doesn't do anything new but admirably improves an old and exploited genre that has seen a small comeback with the likes of Deathwatch and Outpost, relying on human drama, intrigue and multiple strand narratives to keep the audience guessing as to how the end will happen rather than what the outcome will most typically be.
Untypically, its characters are all very different people with complex pasts and concerns in their lives. No one is typically maddened or emotionally disturbed by the war. In fact it is highly suggested that the toughest of the platoon's soldiers are liars who have barely even seen combat and are terrified by the prospect.
Having said all that, I feel that the climax is a bit of a let down, in the sense that so much tension built is spent on revealing the not so clever conclusion. It saves itself by being kind of creepy and I suppose by giving a nod to classic Asian ghost stories. But it seemed like it was going to be different and it gave no real surprises.
Still a fantastic film and very well made but don't hold your breath... if you can help it!