Review of Monster (2014) by Larry R — 15 Jun 2015

The lone review on here says this is a caricature of mental illness. I guess, partly, it is, but it's mostly a caricature of people with learning disabilities. The lead character, Bok-Soon is, very clearly, someone with mental deficiencies, sometimes coming across more like a 7-year-old.

I don't have any problem with that, at all. It's how they decide to present the character that I have a huge problem with. She's not a fully-formed character, she's a muppet for you to pity.

She is there for you to go ''aww, poor girl." It's a little bit insulting that your idea to get sympathy for this character is to have her be mentally challenged. That's honestly what they were going for because it, literally, makes no sense whatsoever to have her be this way.

If you can't find a way to create sympathy for someone whose sister was murdered, and now she's also taking care of a little girl who also lost her sister to the same man, then you're just not a very good writer and probably should stop trying to tell stories.

Perhaps that's a little harsh to say, and I'm very willing to admit that, but this is just the dirt worst in character development and it's insulting to people with mental disabilities in that they're here only to be pitied by others.

And then there's this entire quirky comedic side to the film that feels totally out of place. It's not that a film like this shouldn't have its lighter moments, because I'm all for that, it's just the fact that it has to work within the context of the bigger story you're trying to tell.

It does not, in fact, work here. It's like watching one of these quirky rom-coms that come out of South Korean mixed in with a revenge story. It works as well as could be expected and, as you can see, it didn't work well.

At all. I do not understand the reasoning behind this choice. I say this a lot, but it may be the truest in this case, in that it feels like watching two completely different movies in one. And neither of them is very good.

There are definitely some moments that made me chuckle in the film, though I've forgotten all about them. But by trying to please two different audiences at the same time, you end up pleasing none of them at all.

Cause the revenge shit is substandard at best. In the land with Bedevilled, I Saw the Devil, The Trilogy of Vengeance, Chasers, among many, many others, you're gonna have to do so much more to stand out ahead of the pack than this film did.

The climax itself is appropriately bloody, but it's not particularly satisfying. While the villain did some pretty heinous things, he comes across as someone who was a product of his upbringing rather than someone who chose to become this terrible serial killer.

He's, in fact, more sympathetic than the heroine of the film. This is mostly because he actually, somewhat, feels like a character instead of just someone that's there for you to pity, like Bok-soon.

There's also the little girl, who did absolutely nothing for me as a character. There's like three scenes where the girl and Bok-soon start to argue and then they both start crying and yelling at the other, apologizing, etc.

and it is as annoying as you may have imagined. It didn't really build any sympathy for them either. It's not like people crying will instantly drum up sympathy for them. That's not how it works.

You have to care for them first. And it's not like the acting is bad. It's not like the actress that plays Bok-soon is terrible. She does a decent job with what she is given. It's just that her characterization is absolutely backwards.

The film isn't terrible, it's serviceable at best, but it's just one that makes some truly perplexing story choices that work against them almost at every turn. The only real reason I watched this is that it was available on Netflix Instant.

And I have this thing where I pretty much watch every South Korean film that is available on Netflix. There are obvious exceptions as I haven't seen EVERY SK movie available on there. I'd say I've seen a good 75-80% of them.

I love the culture and I love how the films are presented, even if they may not be good films. So just attribute it to that, I suppose, and not because I genuinely wanted to watch the film. It's certainly below average film, but I've seen considerably worse.

I realize that's not a glowing recommendation, but in the case of this film, it's pretty much the nicest thing I can say about it.