Shadows in the Palace (Goongnyeo)

-

Last night I finished watching Goongnyeo (2007), otherwise known as Shadows in the Palace although the name translates literally to "palace woman". Overall I did not much care for it.

SPOILERS: My primary problem was that it tried to be two movies at once -- a serious mystery drama and a j-pop horror, and the later really detracted from the former, which I thought was doing just fine until about the half-way point of the film. If they had kept to slowly unraveling the details of the murder, I'd have been happy. Instead, they introduced the mystical and once that happens any detective work goes right out the door. It really bothered me! I was also upset by the brutal and grotesque violence that those women had to endure, portrayed in such detail. I mean it was just so vivid, so graphic, I was just turned right off. I suppose the director wanted to get the point across that we were once barbarians. They surely succeeded in that regard.

Which is too bad because I was quite interested in the story and plot -- there's been a murder inside the palace made to look like a suicide. What then appears to be a simple case of infidelity is spun quite around on its head. Once you get to that point in the film I'd say you've seen the best parts already. Sticking around for the ending, with its spirits and possessions and gratuitous gore, is a real disappointing experience.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

fifty is the number

-
I turned fifty last month. We had a small party with old faces, lots of laughs, and, at least for me, a reminder of the life I had before the pandemic, before having a kid, before my colon surgery . That is to say, a good time, and I hope to have many more like it. I do feel older, in practical, daily ways. For one thing my eyes have gotten much worse over the past year, so bad that I find myself looking over my glasses to look at my phone. My skin is just ravaged by this dry winter air, well beyond anything I'd ever experienced. A lifetime of neglect and sun-exposure has finally caught up to me. While I'm not exactly getting heavy I have noticed a softness building up around my torso. So over the past few months I've taken to doing modified burpees as my daily exercise and have been pretty happy with the results. I do them in small bursts, HIIT-style, and that seems about the pace I can afford, both on a time and energy level. I do try to play video games but I definitely ...
Read more

Dying, up close

-
In media people are portrayed as alert and cognizant right up to the moment they pass, able to give a final message to a loved one. Not so with my father, and I feel his death is more typical of the experience — a disinterest in watching or reading anything, increasingly jumbled speech, a loss of any appetite or thirst, just long periods of sleep. Finally a day or more of near-constant sleep, his heart beating slower and slower, until we turned away for a moment and he was gone. Though really he had been dying in varying degrees for weeks, his bodily performance a far cry from even a couple months before. It’s been over a month since the funeral  but the events leading up to it are still fresh in my mind, a history where my dad still lives, still has advice for me, still has smiles for his friends and family. My grief comes and goes, gradually trending to a melancholy, a deep sigh in my day. In truth I have been grieving these past few years as signs of my father’s end would appear...
Read more

a return to the mood

-
Image
And yet life goes on. In June we had a short visit to Montreal, packing in the usual sights and flavours, tempered by the heat and our own waning energy levels. We took great advantage of the hotel's pool, swimming a joy I never tire of, encouraging Sora to get more comfortable in the water. I didn't have much opportunity to pick out my old haunts but I could see that the city has grown since my days there, shimmering halcyon days full of youth and opportunity. Indeed every moment on the streets would bring waves of memories, of friends faded or forgotten, my head lost and spinning and trying to breathe it all in again. Obviously very different now but seeing it anew through Sora's eyes gave some fresh pleasure. We made the trip to the recently updated Biosphere, probably the highlight of the trip, the biomes living up to their names. My heart shatters at the thought of our poor Ontario Science Centre being stripped of its wares, each precious exhibit cast out, the unique, ...
Read more