WISHING STAIRS

(a.k.a. YEOGO GOEDAM 3: YEOWOO GYEDAN; WHISPERING CORRIDORS 3: WISHING STAIRS)

It is night. A girl slowly ascends a succession of white concrete steps, counting her way to the top. When she reaches the top step, the 28th, she cautiously proceeds forward and counts the invisible 29th. Then she takes a deep breath, and asks the wishing stairs to grant her a wish: "Let us always be together".

Following the atmospheric prologue, we discover the wishing stairs are based just outside the grounds of a remote boarding school.

So-hee (Han-byeol Park) attends the school to begrudgingly fulfil her mother's desire for her to become a top ballet dancer. While in ballet class, she bows out of rehearsals with the bogus complaint of having a leg injury. She shows her best friend, the studious Jin-Sung (Ji-hyo Song, SOME), two concert tickets. Together they sneak away from class and over the school gates, passing the fabled wishing stairs on their way to the secret gig.

Meanwhile, the overweight Hae-Ju (An Jo, GOOSEBUMPS) hides in a school basement celebrating her birthday alone by scoffing a whole cream cake. She's sick of being the butt of her school friends' jokes, and has crafted a sculpture of the wishing stairs, convinced that the legendary wish-making 29th step does really exist.

After further bullying from her classmates the following day, Hae-Ju starts to wish more and more that she could become slim.

So-hee and Jin-Sung, meanwhile, are beginning to irritate each other. A school ballet competition is announced and both girls secretly harbour hopes of landing the coveted role of Giselle.

Hae-Ju is the first to consult the wishing stairs, and stuns her classmates the following day with her new slender physique.

Things get decidedly darker, and slightly supernatural, from this point in as the girls wrestle with insecurities, rivalry and paranoia, and Jin-Sung asks the stairs to help her beat the clingy, mischievous So-hee to the part of Giselle ...

WISHING STAIRS is undeniably well-made. Despite its obvious modest budget, the school is a great location to shoot creepy scenes in - all long dark corridors, and so on. Jeong-min's cinematography stands out as the film's strongest point; ensuring proceedings are consistently beautiful to look at.

The young cast are uniformly strong, with An Jo particularly impressing with her sympathetic take on the sad, lonely and quietly deranged Hae-ju. The film's score, too, is noteworthy. At times predictable, it is for the most part experimental and eerie.

The ballet scenes inevitably draw comparison with SUSPIRIA. However, despite being well shot and edited they lack the emotional impact of Argento's effort. There's a few small scenes too (the walks down the school corridors; the face appearing at Jin-Sung's bedroom window) that further recall Argento's masterpiece. Which isn't such a good idea by director Jae-yeon Yun, seeing as though - as technically proficient as WISHING STAIRS is - his film is no masterpiece.

The problem with WISHING STAIRS is that it treads no new ground, and is at times embarrassingly clichéd. It tries so hard with its skewered camera angles, thunderclaps and lightening bolts, to be frightening. And although there are moments of creepiness, the end result is an average albeit not very effective chiller. It's not scary, just competent.

Tartan UK's disc is up to the high standards the company are now becoming known for. The film itself is presented uncut in a spiffing 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, and couldn't look better.

Audio is available in original Korean, with choices to listen to it in stereo, 5.1 and 5.1 DTS. All are equally impressive. I opted for the 5.1 mix, which was well balanced, loud and clear. A sterling job. Removable English subtitles are free from typing errors and easy to read.

Extras include four featurettes focusing on different aspects of the production. FIRST POSITION concentrates on the ballet training the young actresses went through; SKETCHING STAIRS features an interview with illustrator Lee Ae-Rim; FITTING IN is footage of the FX crew preparing An Jo's "fat suit"; UNIQUE MUSIC focuses on the band Gong Myoung. All featurettes come with optional English subtitles. The total running time for the featurettes is approx 24 minutes.

Elsewhere we get trailers for ONE NIGHT IN MONGKOK, ANOTHER PUBLIC ENEMY, WHISPERING CORRIDORS, R-POINT and VITAL.

It's worth noting the R1 release has different extras.

Korea is producing some highly interesting, stylish movies at present. WISHING STAIRS is interesting. It is stylish. It's also ever so slightly average and forgettable.

The first two instalments of this Korean horror trilogy are also available on Tartan DVD: WHISPERING CORRIDORS and MEMENTO MORI.

Review by Stu Willis