INTO THE MIRROR

The latest Eastern horror off the conveyer belt, the Korean INTO THE MIRROR is yet another variation on the angry young wraith theme. If it abandons the gimmicky videos (RINGU), mobile phones (THE PHONE) and insidiously long black hair that flows through the cycle, it's nonetheless made to type. Slick, surprising and perhaps a bit too clever for its own good, it proves to be a thoroughly professional yet eminently disposable bit of popcorn fun.

Distressed at the death of his partner, ex detective Woo Young-min (Yu Ji-tae) makes ends meet as head of security at the Dreampia department store. Carried by his uncle, who runs the place, he gets a chance to flex his skills of deduction when an employee of the soon-to-reopen superstore winds up dead. Since burning down three years earlier, the Dreampia building had been haunted by tales of a strange presence in the many mirrors of the place.

After the caretaker dies, the police decide that suicide isn't the case and move in to Woo's control room. While the coppers, including Woo's old colleague Ha Hyun-su, believe that murder is the case, Woo himself notices on the security cameras that both died in front of mirrors, with no offscreen room for a killer to do its work. Vitally, he sees the unusual symmetry: that one was a left handed victim killed by a right handed blow, and that the other was left handed but done in by a leftie.

Delving deeper into the case, Woo discovers the secret of an angry, homicidal female spirit who kills through the mirrors, in the process getting closer to his own demons. Mirrors happen to be a constant bane to Woo, harking back to the fateful hostage crisis that made him walk away from the force: he accidentally shot the reflection of a man about to kill his partner, instead of the actual offender, and his mistake led to the poor chap taking a bullet through the head.

As events become more complicated, the spirit's mentally ill, mirror-fixated twin sister becomes a prime suspect, but Woo finds that the source of evil is a lot closer to home than he ever could have imagined…

Smoothly directed, crisply edited and photographed with a slickly attractive sheen, INTO THE MIRROR is wonderfully packaged but is perhaps a bit too sleek for its own good. Like the very interesting THE PHONE, the environs and the people within look a little too fine. If that film, also made in Korea, risked losing its icy grip by keeping its pretty, painstakingly lit female protagonist in close-up, MIRROR features baby faced male coppers engaging in (un) healthy doses of designer brooding. It's remarkably implausible how all of these prissy young men could go through the meat grinder so many times. Angst is perhaps the new cool, but Yu Ji-tae's depiction of Woo is a bit too wet for good.

THE PHONE is an interesting point of comparison, because in essence, MIRROR is the same film. Made in the same country, with similar textures, they both ultimately boil down to a spirit who uses various methods - phones…and in this case mirrors - to mediate the spirit and the living worlds. They also involve greed oriented corporate killings, with victimised young women turned supernatural avengers, and feature relentless "oh my word" plot twists and Scooby-do bad guy confessions that pull the rug from under us. What differs MIRROR somewhat is its commitment to the subject matter. Almost every image features multiple reflections and layers of overwhelming symmetry. Theme and style are stapled together, and for once the mad twist seems natural.

Tartan have given this film the special treatment, including an anamorphic transfer than puts across the film's slickness with some accuracy, and two disk's full of extras, including an informative audio commentary that helpfully spells out a lot of the backstory and meaning; the expected trailer; a comparison between film and storyboard that clues those interested in the process of realising images; 9 minutes of deleted scenes, a music video and finally TV spot.

Review by Matthew Sanderson