Phone

Released by: Tartan Films
Released on: 1/25/2005
Director:Byeong-ki Ahn
Cast:Ji-won Ha, Yu-mi Kim
Year: 2002
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The Movie:

Hey wow, another Asian ghost story about a young girl with long black hair!

The Korean lensed Phone follows a girl named Ji-Won who gets herself a brand new cellular phone. One night, while hanging out with some friends, her good pal's daughter, a nice little girl named Yeong-Ju, puts the phone to her ear and freaks out - whatever she heard in the ear piece has terrified the little girl.

Ji-Won doesn't get too worked up over it initially though, until, as the hours and days pass by, a few other seemingly random but definitely strange occurances being popping in and out of her life - and they all seem to revolve around her new cell phone. These bizarre and macabre occurances inspire the lovely Ji-Won to look into things a little bit in hopes of figuring out just exactly why her phone seems to be bringing evil into her life. What she discovers is that everyone who had her phone number before she did died in some very mysterious and unsual ways.

Meanwhile, the young Yeong-Ju is starting to act stranger and stranger ever since her incident with Ji-Won's cell phone from earlier in the film.This causes Ji-Won to investigate things even further, as she wants to help Yeong-Ju seeing as it was her phone that did this to her and she feels a little bit responsible for it all. Ji-Won uncovers some evidence that the phone number is somehow related to the disapperance of a high school student named Jin-Hie…

The concept of a haunted telephone number is an odd one, but if you think back through history and make note of all the times that numbers have held a spiritual or religious significance, it maybe won't seem so goofy an idea afterall. How is it any more unrealistic for a telephone number to represent something evil and unholy than for the number 666 to represent something evil and unholy? With that in mind, Phone proves itself to be a well made thriller, providing some nicely handled jump scares and a whole lot of atmosphere.

The visuals are nice and slick, with a great tense atmosphere that seems to close in on your as the movie progresses. Camera movements are very graceful and fluid and the performers do a good of portraying enough emotion and genuine terror that the jump scares seem even more effective because of it. The movie pretty much does everything right, at least on a technical level. The problems with Phone arise only if you've seen any of the other popular Asian ghost stories that revolve around a creep young girl with long black hair that seem to have become so popular as of late. If you have sat through a screening of Ring or Ju-On, odds are pretty good you'll see the big finale coming long before you probably should or probably want to, and that takes a lot of the tension out of the film immediately. In short, it's a well made film, but it is very derivitive in terms or look, story, and visuals - it borrows quite heavily from a couple of Asian horror films that came before it (and in my opinion did it better).

Video/Audio/Extras:

Tartan's 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer does a great job of reproducing the dark color scheme that the director worked with in the film. Black levels are strong and solid throughout the film, and color defininition is sturdy and consistent. Mpeg compression artifacts are virtually invisible and edge enhancement is very slight. There are a few scenes that are grainy, and I think this is an artistic decision rather than a flaw in the transfer or the elements used to create this transfer, but other than that Phone looks just great.

There are three audio mixes on this DVD, all of which are in Korean - Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround, and DTS 5.1 Surround Sound. All three mixes sound great, with the slight edge going to the DTS mix for, as usual, slightly stronger bass levels. There's plenty of distinct channel seperation throughout the mixes, which helps out with the jump scares and helps create a nice, creepy atmosphere.

Who wants extras? I do, I do! And Tartan steps up and delivers a few good ones with this release. First up is a length forty five minute behind the scenes segment that follows the film from beginning to end. While it feels a little drawn out at that length, it does a fantastic job of letting the viewer see how things went down behind the camera as well as in front of it and it has a nice selection of talking head footage, and assorted random 'look how this was done' footage. A thirteen minute and five minute segment also fill in the blanks on how the movie was made, and with a combined running time of over an hour between the three pieces, it borders on overkill.

Aside from that, there are some interviews with the main stars as well as the director. These on camera question and answer sessions vary in length and cover all manner of things related to the movie, from casting to personal experiences on the set to odd, quirkly little personal anecdotes about making the film. These are reasonably interesting and worth checking out.

A handful of alternate/deleted scenes can also be found on the disc, as well as a scene specific commentary from young female star, Seo-Woo Eun. The alternate scenes are unfinished and look it, and the commentary isn't particularly interesting for the most part. Seo-Woo discusses her unsual acting practice methods and some of the specific things that inspired her or how she felt during a specific scene as it was shooting versus how she feels about it looking back on it, which is fine, but if you're looking for technical information of good gossipy stories about costars, you won't find it here.

Rounding out the supplement are the standard Tartan Asia Extreme promo reel, a couple of television spots for Phone, and some footage from the warp party that was held after the movie finished principal photography.

The Final Word:

While I found Phone to be just a little too derivitive for its own good (though still worth a look), Tartan has done a bang up job on the presentation with great audio and video quality, and some decent extra features as well. I know the film has its fans out there, and those who did get more out of the movie than I did will definitely enjoy this release.