Blood is an accessory in Korean film, much like earrings or a gold chain. I don’t know how else to describe it. I’ve now seen a whole lot of film from South Korea and I swear no culture uses blood as a fashion statement with such vigor. This particular film, The Witch: Part 1 – The Subversion, didn’t lack for blood-stained faces, but held back initially to show instead a blood-soaked playroom. Juxtapose a teddy bear with janitorial aftermath in Carrie and you get the idea. Hey, we’ve been warned.
Ja-yoon (Kim Da-Mi) is just your average amnesia-stricken, blood-soaked, eight-year-old runaway. What is she running from, exactly? Some sort of secret government bio-weapon development compound, maybe? Oh, and they want to get her back, badly. Either they have a thing for little girl tea parties or her undefined superpowers make her a grotesque and dangerous abomination of humanity. Could go either way, really.
Let me be clear here: there is no clear. Here’s what we know: the girl ran away. She can do some extraordinary stuff (we’re guessing). We don’t know what this compound is, who runs it, or why it exists, but the little girl left a bloody mess and a substantial body count in her wake. Naturally, in the next scene, she’s a truck-driving teenager conning the local Ace Garden Center out of cowchow. Oh, and she’s beautiful … and smart … and talented. Your basic nightmare.
Much of this film plays like a more graphic Korean take on “Stranger Things” – here’s an orphan protagonist; she has weird powers;, she’s a runaway from an evil government lab and just wants to lie low but her past is catching up with her … heck, all she needs is a nosebleed from using some powers and – oh, you got that, too. Yeah, this is “Stranger Things” all right. OTOH, Ja-yoon, encouraged by her galpal, essentially outs herself by appearing on a local talent show. So … sort of “Stranger Things” meets “American Idol” … with blood.
The Witch: Part 1 – The Subversion doesn’t get going until we meet Nobleman (Choi Woo-shik), a kid with similar gifts to Ja-yoon, but also the added benefits of a memory, no conscience, and is possibly a member of BTS. There’s a lot of evil you can do in the world when your superpowers aren’t stifled by amnesia or empathy. It isn’t until the trainride where these two meet that the film got my attention. But it held for a while, at least until the big reveal and the bloody aftermath. I’m mildly looking forward to The Witch Part 2: Which Witch’s Witch is Which? scheduled for 2021 … but I’m not gonna howl if it never happens.
She’s wields gifts only a God can bless
And she just a teen, but I digress
With abilities so rare
One above call, I care
Has she the power to clean up her mess?
Not Rated [read: R], 125 Minutes
Director: Hoon-jung Park
Writer: Hoon-jung Park
Genre: Guess what happened here? (Hint: it wasn’t good)
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Orphans
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Puppet-masters
