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acsdoug D I appreciate the concept, but I just didn't think the vignettes were all that interesting. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 11/24/24 Full Review Alan W Essentially a portmanteau film comprising of 6 individual and loosely connected short stories taking place in Seoul over a period of 4 days in 2022, the latest from South Korean writer-director Beom-sik Jeong, known previously for his horror films, purports to be a reflection of a time of chaos and unrest in not just Korean history but that of the world all over. Encompassing serial killers, peeping toms, hopeless romantics and singletons looking for love on dating apps, amongst others, what we have here is a mixed bag of unhappy and often lonely characters and morality tales that come across less than moral. What it definitely does is continue the tradition in South Korean cinema of intriguingly outrageous stories with wicked violent payoffs, sometimes regardless of morality value and narrative coherence. They are fun stories that work in a Tales of the Unexpected kinda way, playing with audience's expectations and genre conventions in a brutally reckless manner, but the connective tissues between the stories are not as clever as I had hoped for (though at least they don't feel smug or contrived) and really, they just cohabit in the same city, with a couple of overlapping characters which create a domino effect on some of the interlocking storylines. This glossy looking film is no doubt well-made and well-acted (by a wide cast of K-pop idols and young up-and-coming actors, including Squid Games' Yoo-mi Lee) and it's entertaining enough for as long as the film lasts, but the mostly, though not always, gruesome endings don't amount to any meaningful reflections on our times and what I think it's trying to say doesn't get any more profound than that some people are crazy nutjobs and we should try our best to avoid them. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/02/24 Full Review Read all reviews

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