Haunters (really not sure why it's called/translated as this, though a couple of ghosts do outlandishly show up late in the piece) starts somewhat intriguingly, but pretty soon wildly runs off the rails, as far as telling a half-way interesting story goes. A man who can control people's minds and thus their actions (Think Professor X without the telepathy), meets another guy who is immune to his powers. For not really believable reasons, they are soon going one on one with one another, for the rest of the movie.
I don't need to know the reasons why Cho-in has the powers he has, nor why those same powers don't work on Kyu-nam. However I do need to know the motivations behind a clearly outgunned Kyu-nam, launching a clueless kind of crusade across the city, seeking to stop Cho-in. It never makes any real sense, an observation Cho-in himself, makes more than once. Supposedly it's due to the death of his boss of a couple of days, at the hands of Cho-in. But it just never rings true, since the pursuit ends up causing a huge number of innocent people to die.
Similarly, if you're going to give Kyu-nam extra powers (I'm guessing here) of some degrees of invulnerability at least make him aware of it, in the same manner as the audience has been made aware that Cho-in has grown up with his powers. Don't have him hit by cars, stabbed, shot, electrocuted, hung, slammed into concrete walls, fall from skyscrapers and just have him weirdly shaking stuff off, that even he doesn't seem to understand. And while we're there, can I just say that I'm totally over films having characters suddenly hit by soundless, lightless, brakeless cars. I know it's all designed to provide a sudden jump shock, but we know in reality it never occurs like that and it is just too overused in movies to the point of being totally cliched.
Gang Dong-won as Cho-in has evil charisma, but his counterpart, Go Soo as Im Kyu-nam has to frequently contend with sprouting some rather unbelievable lines of dialogue (though once again there may have been some awkward translations into English). But I did get pretty sick of him claiming to want to off Cho-in, but then whenever he has an opportunity, delaying the inevitable to allow his implacable enemy, an avenue of escape or retribution. We've seen it all before ... so many times.
Haunters also suffers from an uneven tone. At times it seems to be reaching for a degree of comical dark humour, without the benefit as mentioned, of the Tarantino quality dialogue. Characters such as Yeong-sook and Hyo-sook are woefully underwritten and then disappear for great lengths of time only to reappear for, one senses, convenience's sake, rather than to reestablish any sort of relationship with the lead characters.
Ultimately Haunters is just further evidence, that even with the best intentions and plentiful studio backing, without a good script and solid direction, good cinematic ideas are just that, ideas and sadly nothing much more substantial than that.
I don't need to know the reasons why Cho-in has the powers he has, nor why those same powers don't work on Kyu-nam. However I do need to know the motivations behind a clearly outgunned Kyu-nam, launching a clueless kind of crusade across the city, seeking to stop Cho-in. It never makes any real sense, an observation Cho-in himself, makes more than once. Supposedly it's due to the death of his boss of a couple of days, at the hands of Cho-in. But it just never rings true, since the pursuit ends up causing a huge number of innocent people to die.
Similarly, if you're going to give Kyu-nam extra powers (I'm guessing here) of some degrees of invulnerability at least make him aware of it, in the same manner as the audience has been made aware that Cho-in has grown up with his powers. Don't have him hit by cars, stabbed, shot, electrocuted, hung, slammed into concrete walls, fall from skyscrapers and just have him weirdly shaking stuff off, that even he doesn't seem to understand. And while we're there, can I just say that I'm totally over films having characters suddenly hit by soundless, lightless, brakeless cars. I know it's all designed to provide a sudden jump shock, but we know in reality it never occurs like that and it is just too overused in movies to the point of being totally cliched.
Gang Dong-won as Cho-in has evil charisma, but his counterpart, Go Soo as Im Kyu-nam has to frequently contend with sprouting some rather unbelievable lines of dialogue (though once again there may have been some awkward translations into English). But I did get pretty sick of him claiming to want to off Cho-in, but then whenever he has an opportunity, delaying the inevitable to allow his implacable enemy, an avenue of escape or retribution. We've seen it all before ... so many times.
Haunters also suffers from an uneven tone. At times it seems to be reaching for a degree of comical dark humour, without the benefit as mentioned, of the Tarantino quality dialogue. Characters such as Yeong-sook and Hyo-sook are woefully underwritten and then disappear for great lengths of time only to reappear for, one senses, convenience's sake, rather than to reestablish any sort of relationship with the lead characters.
Ultimately Haunters is just further evidence, that even with the best intentions and plentiful studio backing, without a good script and solid direction, good cinematic ideas are just that, ideas and sadly nothing much more substantial than that.