The Witch: Subversion

Park Hoon-Jeong is a solid director who has made films like New World, The Tiger, and V.I.P. He also wrote the screenplay for the excellent I Saw the Devil, so he’s a clear guarantee of quality, and he's probably made me the happiest with his new effort. The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion is a gritty, suspenseful and visually breathtaking supernatural thriller about a little girl who massacres the entire lab that has been conducting strange experiments on her and escapes into the woods, where she begins a new life when a new family "adopts" her. Kim-Da is no ordinary little girl to me though, she has supernatural abilities and is proficient in things like telekinesis, but unfortunately she also suffers from amnesia so she doesn't remember the horrors she has committed. The problem comes when she shows what she can do live on a TV show and this is noticed by some very bad people who are eager for revenge and to get the little girl back. The first hour is a bit slower and comes across more like a drama, but from the second half onwards it's a decently frantic action ride with dangerous bad guys, a decent amount of violence, excellent action scenes (I've never seen such brisk and innovative action filmed anywhere before), and the finale is one of the best that Asia has produced this year. There are a few unexpected solid twists in the story as well, so there's a bit of everything. Big praise also for the lead young actress,who gives an Oscar-winning performance, her transformation of an innocent sweet girl into an uncompromising killing machine was delicate. So yeah, and considering this is Part 1, we may be in for a very wild trilogy. (31.12.2018)