Tubular_Bell If you could imagine all of the Asian horror clichés thrown into a single film, then with every single aspect cranked up to 11 without any cleverness or reason, you'd get a pretty bad film. Make it a couple of notches worse and you'd almost get The Red Shoes. There is absolutely no cleverness, no wit, no intelligence behind this film. Everything is exaggerated and amplified to the point where nothing is tied together, and every opportunity for gratuitous gore and violence thrown under the excuse of "psychological thriller" is used. The film is so over-the-top that it could be passed off as an acid, mean-spirited satire of Asian horror with perhaps a few small changes.The film manages something impressive: while it shows absolutely no restraint in terms of jump scares, gore shots and blood gushing, the film isn't really unpredictable, and the story as a whole follows every single rule in the book. Everything is there. It's even worse than Avatar in terms of following the conventions. And you can't even use the argument that "the visuals are pretty" here, because everything is so in-your-face, it's downright tragic: the monochromatic shots, the blurriness, the uncomfortable close-ups, the occasional Shaky-Cam, and so on and on. Just avoid this film. Even if you're genuinely scared by horror films, go pick something better.

GoregirlsDungeon 'THE RED SHOES' is a supernatural tale with its center revolving around a pretty typical plot involving a mother alone with her daughter, struggling in the world. The reoccurring images you see in far too many Korean ghost stories are present here. There are pale faced girls with long black hair hanging in their face and cursed artifacts that bring misfortune to those that possess them. But there are enough unique touches paired with an intriguing performance by the lead actress that helps to elevate its status.Sun-Jae unexpectedly goes home in the middle of the day to find her husband banging some other woman. She moves out on her own with her young daughter Han Tae-su to an inexpensive apartment near Goksung Station. She meets handsome young architect, In-cheol who is designing her eye clinic and the two embark on a relationship. On the subway on her way home Sun-Jae sees a seemingly abandoned pair of shoes she cannot resist picking up. The shoes bring the worst out in people, including her daughter who becomes obsessed with them on sight. When a friend is found dead and her daughters behavior becomes more severe, Sun-Jae and In-cheol will need to solve the mystery behind the cursed footwear before it's too late.Bloody death scenes filmed in sterile white environments can be extremely effective. The opening scene of 'THE RED SHOES' is an outstanding example of this. There are some cherry props also. The main character is obsessed with shoes. The depth of the obsession is shown with a massive glass store display prop. The stacked glass boxes showcases each individual pair of shoes. The visuals are strong throughout. There are some respectable moments of suspense, but not nearly enough of them. Violence and gore is slim but I enjoyed what there was of it. The performances were strong and there is some interesting character development. I found the lead actress, Hye-su Kim fascinating. The love interest, In-cheol is very easy on the eyes. The problem is, that I liked the films individual pieces more than the completed work. I had a serious issue with certain "spooky" images. One in particular stood out because it is a carbon copy of something I've seen in at least two other films and seemed completely irrelevant to the story. Obviously added in for mood, it was totally ineffective. There are some predictable plot twists that also bog it down. The story is uneven and trips over its own feet, but ultimately for a ghost story it just isn't very scary. That said, I still think this is a really nice looking film with strong performances and enough special touches that it's worth a watch.

doctor_allen The film starts out a decent enough rip-off of Japanese horror, specifically (and painfully obviously) Dark Water and Ringu. Standard South Korean over-production, over-acting, and general pretension makes viewing difficult at times, but there does appear to be a salvageable horror film in the works. Then we get the Act II Freak Out, in which the main character hallucinates and talks to herself for no apparent reason, ala Tale of Two Sisters, followed by outright random s*** ala Ju-on, interspersed with implausible yet beautifully photographed flashbacks. Clichéd. Boring. Hamfisted. Incoherent. Just terrible.There is, however, a bright moment near the end of the film (actually, right where the film should have ended) that could have salvaged it. Just imagine if they had ripped off Samaritan Girl instead of outdated Japanese horror (and turned the pretense down about five notches--and hired a cinematographer who doesn't think he's shooting magazine ads). I actually thought for a moment that the Red Shoes may be only a C or D movie.Then they just had to go all the way. They had to shoot for total implausibility. We're talking over-the-top clichéd. Physically impossible. Totally unsupported by everything that precedes it. I don't even think it would qualify as a spoiler to tell you, because it's just that stupid. Just ask yourself, "Okay. What could the writer/director do at this point to ruin the film and make me lose all respect for him?" You've got it.F. Total waste. This is a film that makes you feel stupid for having watched it. It's like clicking on goatse.

choyos_flaz The Red Shoes (Which are pink, by the way) is an example of how exaggerating horror films can reach nowadays WARNING: SPOILERS Now, the story started off with a woman called Sun-jae, who caught her hubby having sex with another woman aka an affair. so she grabbed her daughter and they moved out of the house to stay in an apartment. There, she started with the renovation of her eye clinic BLAHBLAHBLAH...not very important. by the way, she fell in love with the architect. Now, the horror starts when she stumbled upon a pair of pretty cool looking high heel shoes. And much to her dismay, everyone (Ok, more like only women) who sees the shoes will be obsessed with it First, it was her daughter. Ahhh...then her friend Mi-hee. Mi-Hee stole the shoes and died in one of the most gruesome ways ever-TERRIFIC! So, my point of views of this film: Has couple of nice chilling moments like the part where she sees this long hair woman in the elevator. VEry cool! Some twists here and there though some of the twists were lame. Like the fact that only whoever who STEALS the shoes will be killed Which means that if you steal the shoes from a particular person, you will die and not that particular person. The ending twist about Sun-Jae having split personality is cool but weird too. Overall, this is an excellent an elegant horror film with loads of chilling scenes but lack an original story. I would recommend this to you