H

Tartan release another title under their Asia Extreme imprint in the form of Lee Jong-Hyuk's H. Unfortunately, this is not one of the better films in this line of titles, as H ultimately proves to be a rather disappointing piece of cinematic work and, despite showing initial promise, falls decidedly flat long before the final credits roll across the screen.

H opens with the grisly discovery of a woman's body and her forcibly removed unborn child at a landfill site. Detective Kim Mi Yun (Jung-ah Yum) is called in to investigate and she is paired with a male colleague, Detective Kang Tae Hyung (Jin-hee Ji). The modus operandi of the murder seems all too familiar and when another pregnant woman is murdered on a bus it becomes apparent that a killer is recreating the crimes of a former serial killer, who is now behind bars. With more murders expected, the cops turn to incarcerated serial killer, Shin Yun (Seung-woo Cho), whose crimes are being recreated, in order to try and solve the riddle as to why these copycat killings are occurring. Shin Yun is more enigmatic than cooperative, though, and ends up being more of a frustration to the police than a source of helpful insight. As the investigation deepens and things get ever more complicated, a startling revelation is uncovered…

Drawing heavily from films such as Seven and Silence of the Lambs, H wears its influences on its sleeve with pride. Although highly derivative, director Lee Jong-Hyuk injects enough of his own style into the proceedings for it to be able to stand on its own merits. Whilst technically competent and polished, where the film fails to impress is in its central performances. The actors play their roles with little conviction and fail to draw the viewer into the story. Especially dull are the scenes when the two detectives confront serial killer Shin Yun - what passion there was in the performances seemed forced and overly contrived, and so came across as unconvincing. Seung-woo Cho was especially bad in his role as serial killer Shin Yun; he just wasn't frightening or intimidating in the least and ended up being a kind of parody of Hannibal Lecter.

Director Lee Jong-Hyuk can certainly direct with flair and H is definitely a very stylish-looking film - but I would hope that in future endeavours that he would spend more time on character development and pay more attention to appropriate casting. As it stands, it's a marginally interesting film and worth watching at least once. The sequence with the discovery of the murdered pregnant girl on the bus contains one of the most harrowing images I have seen in a film for a long time, so for that reason alone I think it's worth checking out. It's just unfortunate that the film as a whole failed to gel into a cohesive whole and the final twist, whilst quite neat, is rather poor in execution. H is a decidedly average affair and I've seen far better Korean films recently that are far more worthy of attention (in my opinion) than this disappointing affair.

The Tartan disc is up to their usual high standards boasting a vibrant anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer and an involving 5.1 audio sound mix, as well as a DTS option. Extras include an alternate opening, deleted scenes and a 4-page booklet (well, the review copy I had didn't have one, but the cover states that one will be included). A very nice package overall - it's just a shame that the film doesn't live up to expectations.

And one last thing (and I'm aware I'm being pedantic here), but the cover boldly boasts a quote from nixflix.com which says 'Perversly excellent'. I think you'll find that it's spelt 'perversely'. A small complaint, I know - but since the cover is the first thing you see, it might be wise to spell check the front copy before going to press.

Review by C J Otter