#The witch part 1. the subversion train movie
#The witch part 1. the subversion train tv
#The witch part 1. the subversion train free

Her choice of song is neat, but she also performs some kind of trick that we only see much later on in flashback. This is just as well, as much of the first third of this film is centered around them as our heroine wins her audition and gets the money to go to Seoul and enter a competition. We get a real sense of a teen friendship here, rife with bickering and even genuine rivalry yet still based on genuine liking and affection. She’s mostly quite quiet and even studious though, at least compared with her best friend Myung-Hee who is the more confident and even flirty one.

#The witch part 1. the subversion train free

Cut to the present day, and the girl is a pretty 18 year old, using said prettiness to get some free fodder for her adopted dad’s farm from the local shop where the owner’s son clearly fancies her. soon find a young boy who obviously escaped too, but the girl is taken in by a maturely aged couple who call her Koo Ja-yoon, something which adds a fairy tale aspect to things.

Cut to a young girl fleeing for her life. Baek, while somebody is heard to batter a corpse for some unexplained reason. “The head, shoot the head, how many times do I have to tell you idiots”, says the woman seemingly in charge, Dr. Something really messy has taken place here. A woman walking down a corridor takes us to a room where blood is everywhere and some bodies have been covered up. There’s shades of the upsetting flashbacks in Peeping Tom here, as well as of course the first X-Men film. The opening titles set a stark, even disturbing tone, as shots of historical artwork leads to photographs of children in some kind of building where they’re having something done to them. Yet there’s still much to recommend it, such as an astonishing turn from Kim Da-mi who was chosen after auditioning 1,200 candidates, a solid emotional dimension so you do “care”, reasonably good if hardly earth-shattering action scenes, and – well – if you like that kind of thing, a hell of a lot of graphic violence and blood being thrown around.

#The witch part 1. the subversion train movie

And, while I do love a good build-up and certainly don’t require continual action, and am also used to the way Korean films like to suddenly take a left turn in a supposed “action” movie and become something different for a while, a fair bit of the first three quarters is rather redundant, especially when it seems to be just ticking off the cliches.

#The witch part 1. the subversion train tv

The biggest influence though seems to be Marvel, and not just X-Men but TV shows like Runaways and The Gifted, but channeled in such a way that the result is intended to feel fresh – and indeed it does for some of the film – though certainly not all of it as even the most inattentive viewer will probably guess many of the turns of the story and even utter a sigh as each familiar element or plot device is wheeled out. As I watched, I was reminded of Hanna, Lucy, The Fury and several others, and at times I wondered if this was a live action variant of the anime Elfen Lied. I’m not sure that The Witch: Part 1 – The Subversion has more than an original bone in its body. She does well and even performs some kind of “magic trick” whilst on TV, but she begins to have terrible headaches, and then strange people start to appear, people who claim to know her…. Her best friend Myung-Hee has her audition for a talent show. Ten years pass and her parents are dealing with health and financial issues. After a older couple find her unconscious on their property the next morning, they take her in and raise her as their daughter. REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera, Official HCF CriticĪn eight-year-old young girl escapes an unexplained bloodbath from an isolated facility in the middle of the night, and Dr. Starring: Choi Woo-shik, Jo Min-su, Kim Da-mi, Park Hee-soonĪVAILABLE ON DIGITAL HD: NOW, from SIGNATURE ENTERTAINMENT

The Witch: Part 1 - The Subversion ( 2018)