Review by Sam Price
Stars Kam Woo Sung, Sohn Byung-Ho, Oh Tae-Kyung, Park Won-Sang | Written by Kong Su-Chang
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £7.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 101 minutes | Directed by Kong Su-Chang
Released originally under the title of R-Point, this rerelease of an atmospheric South Korean chiller is oddly timed given that the film is unlikely to find an audience, outside of cult enthusiasts, on DVD.
Set in 1972 and opening with an eerie transmission from the bizarrely codenamed and presumed dead soldier “Donkey 30” (the voice subtly prognosticates “We’re all going to die”), the film never lives up to its early promise. Sent on a mission to the terrain known as “R-Point”, Lieutenant Choi (Kam Woo Sung) and his cronies are jettisoned off to Vietnam to try and recover a missing team that were supposed to have snuffed it over six months ago. Almost warded off by a rock inscription that warns “those with blood on their hands” will meet their maker in the near future, they proceed anyway and are roundly picked off one by one by unknown and mysterious forces.
Quite why they continue to inhabit this clearly haunted territory after it becomes apparent everyone they’ve come to find is a corpse, a ghost, or something in-between is never fully explored; and so the net result is a mess of maddening back-and-forth dialogue exchanges that dial down the tension and induce the snores. From here on in the film resembles less “Platoon… with ghosts” than a below average haunted-mansion story, punctuated occasionally with spurts of gunfire and some mordant black humour from our hapless protagonists.
The characterisation is threadbare, with soldiers gifted such scant traits as “He’s the son of mortician” or “He’s got syphilis” that makes it easy to shrug off their deaths when they were so non-descript whilst they were alive anyway. The chance to mix the political firebrand of the Vietnam War with the spooks of a ghost story is one you’d think would make a potent mix. Instead, after the umpteenth tension-devoid communiqué with the dead, you may find yourself nodding off. The repetitiousness of the ‘scares’ are annoying and flaccid, and the film buckles under an infuriating conclusion that is never fully explicated or in keeping with the film’s internal logic. Elsewhere a girl in a white dress wanders around the bulrushes abstractedly to little or no effect, other than to provide some form of narrative continuity to the proceedings.
Ghosts of War squanders an intriguing premise and writhes around in a nonsensical plot of its own making. A disappointment.
EXTRAS ★★★ A healthy package. A lively commentary from director Kong Su-Chang makes the film seem more fun to have directed than sat through; whilst elsewhere on the disc there’s a thorough making-of (30:19); and features on the film’s sound design (13:17), the production design’s historical authenticity (09:59), and special effects (09:58). Also included is an original theatrical trailer (01:50).