Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on May 2013

For his English-language debut, Korean director Chan-wook Park offers us this disturbingly good, delightfully demented, somewhat warped coming-of-age gothic romance. So what’d you expect from the maker of Oldboy and Thirst? The story’s surprisingly simple. A grieving widow and her 18-year-old daughter (a ditzy Nicole Kidman and a poisonous Mia Wasikowska) take in, post-funeral, the deceased’s younger brother (an enigmatic Matthew Goode, whose smile doesn’t reach his eyes). As the three interact, the family dynamic, already pretty dysfunctional, goes through some macabre changes that I’m not going to tell you about. It’s the presentation that makes this simple story so compelling. Park applies his trademark visual mastery with confidence and operatic finesse, while at the same time gradually meting out the film’s secrets and using intercuts and other tension-building editing techniques that would be called show-offy with a lesser director. There’s repressed brutality and a state of dread underlying every scene. A couple of secondary plotlines fail to pay off, but they’re only mildly distracting. This slow-burn, wickedly weird creepiness may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but this one scores points for being compellingly watchable. Impressive.