September 20, 2004 | Category:

Phone

I’m an Asian film fan (in that I like a lot of films made in Asia, rather than being Asian and liking films, but I digress). I like that films get made there that don’t cause grey matter to commit beautiful ritual suicide, and that I can imagine such a thing having seen it in such a movie. Infernal Affairs showed us that action could be stylish, violent and have a plot, while Audition showed us that cheese wire is pretty nasty stuff. Silly ideas can become excellent films.

It is with dismay, then, that I say Phone is awful.

Korea is supposed to be where the horror genre is at the moment, having allegedly created the best version of seminal flick, The Ring. Sadly, Phone shows no signs of intelligence. Instead we’re greeted with terrible acting, bad dialogue (not aided by a translation that should have been spell-checked), and some of the worst pacing I’ve seen. This film could have been cut by an hour and retained what plot it had.

Sometimes silly ideas are just silly.