2001|112 MIN | Horror
DIRECTOR YOON Jong-chan
CAST KIM Myung-min, JANG Jin-young, KEY Joo-bong
RELEASE DATE August 4, 2001
CONTACT Finecut
Tel : +82 2 569 8777
Fax : +82 2 569 6662
Back when Korean horror was mostly known for vengeful female ghosts and jolting soundtracks, one film came along to buck that trend. Enduring as a modern horror classic to this day,
Gooseflesh (better known by its Korean title
Sorum) combines dramatic flare and strong character work, all the while infusing both with a high level of social awareness.
Yong-hyun is a young taxi driver who moves into the decaying Migum Apartment complex. He learns that the previous tenant of his unit was a writer who died there as a result of a fire. Embarking on his new life in the building, he meets his neighbor Sun-young, a young married woman who works in a convenience store and is regularly beaten by her husband. As Yong-hyun and Sun-young grow close, strange events start to occur around them within the walls of the complex.
Gooseflesh roots its scars in the real and nowhere are they more familiar than within the halls of the derelict apartment building which the protagonists are forced to call home. With few light sources, and most of those only through faded paper frames, the interiors have a dim aura and director
YOON Jong-chan paints his story through an engaging selection of tableaux, each drawn from a subdued yet colorful mix of lighting, production design and cinematography.
In his first ever film role,
KIM Myung-min imbues a misleading sense of insouciance into a character who does what he can to distract himself from the squalor of his circumstances, which includes indulging in Bruce Lee fandom. KIM would go one to become one of the leading actors of his generation, most recently seen in
Detective K: Secret of the Living Dead, the third installment in the hit period action-comedy franchise.
A year after featuring alongside
SONG Kang-ho in
KIM Jee-woon’s
The Foul King (2000),
JANG Jin-young melds a tomboyish charm with caustic intensity as the woman suffering next door. Following this high point, JANG would only feature in a handful of subsequent films before succumbing to cancer in 2009.
Director YOON, following several well-received shorts, marked his feature debut with
Gooseflesh. He has since moved into more commercial dramatic fare, including his women pilot drama
Blue Swallow (2005), which reunited him with JANG. He then made the romantic drama
I Am Happy (2009) and most recently the musical coming-of-age drama
My Paparotti (2013).