A high school student with amnesia tries to uncover what has happened to her. All leading her into deeper troubles ultimately revealing a darkness she could not have imagined.
A couple of years ago, I actually came across a trailer for this film on Youtube South Korea. I was intrigued by the premise of a young girl being chased by a mob of morally bankrupt individuals while she remained unable to recognize why she was being traced and why others were shoving memories down her throat – memories that she had no recollection of. The trailer was enough of a hook, line, and sinker that the film swept me away into a series of unexpected plot developments while maintaining the charming essence of a female action star.
“The Witch: Subversion” begins with a violent and heartbreaking scene of cruel adults slamming baseball bats into a child’s skull, crushing their brain and guaranteeing death. In fact, the entire first scene comes across as a massacre of innocent and young children. Later, we come to realize that the children are biologically engineered to carry a mixed brain of psychologically disturbed criminals with the intent of maximizing the human potential for brutality. Having lost control of the bioengineered children, the company in charge ordered their death warrants. Few survived. But the ones that did were led into a wild goose chase full of deceit and manipulation. And lots of blood was shed.
At first glance, the blood is a bit much to swallow. Wounds from knives and gunshots sprayed across walls, dripped down faces and drowned the dead. However, as the film progressed, blood became an accentuating feature, leaving many images contrasting an innocent soul with another’s damaged desire for revenge. Perhaps some of the most iconic sequences involve blood being splattered across a face that screams innocence in looks, but hides a detestable desire for violence and pain.
Most of the characters are quite horrid in the film, excluding the protagonist herself – Koo Ja-yoon. She is played by actress Kim Da-mi. Koo Ja Yoon is a rather cheerful character with a trustworthy smile that captured my support, and I found myself rooting for her survival after she escaped from that night of the massacre. It is soon revealed that the casting director knew exactly what they were doing in order to hide the shadow of darkness that existed inside Koo Ja Yoon after her escape.
Meanwhile, Choi Woo-shik and Daeun play the other remaining bioengineered children that survived. They, in contrast to Koo Ja-yoon, are dark and cynical against normal humans and can easily take the life of another without a flinch. Despite their struggle for control and dominance, it becomes clear that they are just pawns caught in the crossfire between humans attempting to play god. Choi Woo-shik’s performance as a sadistic murderer is an acute contrast from his role in “Parasite,” and will draw you in with his eerie performance.
The film is only a part 1 sequence, meaning that there is more to come – more of which I am excited to watch. Koo Ja-yoon left me wanting more of her character’s evolution and the moral ambiguity of her actions kept me addicted to the sight of her presence on screen. Where will she go next?
Now available on Blu-ray™, DVD and Digital
