Cinderella | DVD Review

Everybody’s favorite ragamuffin-turned-princess story gets the royal treatment in this long-awaited newly released edition of the age-old children’s classic, Cinderella. What’s that? Wrong Cinderella, you say? This review is supposed to be about the latest in a long line of Asian horror films featuring a long-haired ghost-like female character? Oh, all right then.

Alas, there are no singing mice or wicked stepsisters, there’s no fairy-godmother or pumpkin chariot. There’s not even a charming prince. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find any male characters besides the heroine’s father in this ‘version’ of Cinderella. 17-year-old Hyunsu (Shin Se-Kyung, My Little Bride) lives with her mother (Do Ji-Won, Barefoot Kibong, Flying Boys), who is a plastic surgeon with a dark secret. Hyunsu’s friends all get some work done by her mother in an effort to attain ul-jjang (the perfect face), but shortly after their surgeries they start to hear haunting voices promising “I’ll make you pretty”, and soon they begin to die mysterious deaths. In an effort to get to the bottom of it all, Hyunsu uncovers her mother’s secret and must then fight for her own life.
Cinderella is director Bong Man-Dae’s second feature film and is quite a departure from his first, the erotic drama Sweet Sex and Love. In the first half of the film, Man-Dae shows promise with his filmmaking in crafting what could have been a fine morality play regarding South Korean society’s penchant for obtaining beauty through plastic surgery, but thanks to a confusing script by Sohn Kwang-Soo, Cinderella quickly devolves into a bungled mess in the last half. This is unfortunate, because everything else about the film is praiseworthy: top-notch acting from the mostly female cast, well-crafted shots and beautiful cinematography from the director, and a decent score that also includes some Korean pop music, which is interesting to say the least.

The fact that Cinderella is a teen-oriented movie makes it hard to categorize as a pure horror film, though. It goes heavy on the sudden frights, but there’s very little gore for the hardcore horror buff. And when there is blood, as in a scene where two art-school friends carve each other’s faces up while in some kind of trance-like state, it’s done in such a stylish fashion that it’s more laughable than scary.

Not enough can be said about the technical superiority of Tartan Video’s DVD releases, and they once again live up to their reputation, delivering a beautiful and crisp widescreen transfer that includes 5.1 Dolby Surround and 5.1 DTS Surround sound. The subtitles are timely and easy to follow as well.
Thankfully, though, there are very few bonuses on the disc. There’s a theatrical trailer for Cinderella, some trailers for other Tartan releases, and a rather generic making-of featurette that briefly covers the cast, the technical crew, the plot, and the director.

I’ll admit that I like my horror films to be a lot more bloody and disturbing than most people, but even occasional horror fans may find themselves bored and almost certainly confused by the plot of Cinderella. And please, enough with the long-haired ghost girls already! It’s time somebody developed a new tactic for scaring viewers…this one’s getting old.

Movie rating – 1.5

Disc Rating – 2