2 Korean Ghost Films Involving Crime and Mystery (Pt 2 of 2)

Continuing my recommendations for Korean ghost movies that are “unusually strange” (in my opinion).

• Movie (2) titled “Cadaver” (aka “The Cut”) had a low rating but I prefer to watch legal or medical dramas and make my own decisions. The lead actress is an award-winning actress who is very popular these days, so I was interested in her earlier work. Her acting career dates back to 2003. She had a minor role in “A Jewel in the Palace”, the K-drama that started the Korean Wave.

♦ (2) Cadaver (2007)

GENRE: Ghost stories, Horror, Supernatural, Fantasy, Crime, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Medical Drama

STORYLINE: The story begins with what appears to be a gruesome murder scene. A woman who was stabbed with scissors is lying dead on the ground and a frightened young girl is staring at a man with bloody hands. It looks like he intends to kill her too. Did he? Don’t know. The scene changes, and Sun-Hwa, a young woman, is leaving the airport and heading to medical school to meet up with the rest of her team: Ki-bum, Joong-suk, Eun-joo, Ji-young, and Kyung-min.

It’s a team of six (6) medical students attending an elite school, all in the same anatomy class, who are being trained on how to handle and dissect a cadaver. They are a team but they are also competing with each other to be the best surgeon. Professor Ji-Woo is in charge of the training and he is the one who picked the specific cadaver for them to dissect. The cadaver ~ even in death ~ is a beautiful young woman with a killer body and a rose tattoo on her breast. She’s so hot one of the medical students took out his phone camera.

Uuugghhh! How crass! That’s disgusting not to mention disrespectful. What was his excuse for doing that? He won’t ever see her naked body like that again once they cut her up. Oh! So! That means it’s OK? Dude! Are you that desperate that you need to take a photo of a dead woman?

It’s the strangest thing. Right after the first class and their first contact with that cadaver, and that act of disrespect, they all start having the same dream and they think they’re hallucinating or seeing ghosts. It gets worse. The first team member to die is Eun-Joo. They found her dead body on a table in the room with the rest of the cadavers. She had been dissected just like the cadaver they practiced on. But the only fingerprints found at the crime scene were hers. The police are baffled. Isn’t it impossible for a person to dissect themselves?

The mystery continues and it gets darker and darker. Strange events keep occurring, one by one to each team member, until …

The team members are perplexed and start questioning each other and questioning their sanity because they’ve all started thinking … Is it the cadaver?

Don’t be ridiculous. We’re going to be doctors. We deal with facts and medical science. Cadavers can’t harm the living. Can they?

Main Characters:

• Sun-Hwa (played by Han Ji-Min, “Miss Baek”, “Behind Your Touch”, “Rooftop Prince”, “The Fatal Encounter”, “Detective K: Secret Of Virtuous Widow”, “Love Scout”, “Yonder”, “Lee San, Wind of the Palace”, “A Jewel in the Palace”)
• Ki-Bum (played by Oh Tae-Kyung)
• Joong-Suk (played by On Joo-Wan)
• Eun-Joo (played by Kim So-Yi)
• Ji-Young (played by Chae Yoon-Seo)
• Kyung-Min (played by Moon Won-Ju)
• Professor Ji-Woo (played by Jo Min-Gi)

Viewership and Rating:

• IMDb: 5.4 out of 10 stars
• MyDramaList: 6.6 out of 10 stars
• Viki viewers: 6.6 out of 10 stars
• Letterboxd: 3 out of 5 stars

I agree with the rating of the Viki viewing audience.

It was too confusing to give it a higher rating. (O.o) According to KoreanFilm.org, 2007 was not a good year for Korean movies. “A sense of gloom covered Korean cinema in the year 2007, with fewer strong films than in previous years, local audiences beginning to cool on Korean film, exports showing a continued decline, and the film industry suffering through a recession of sorts.”

• 2 Korean Ghost Films Involving Crime and Mystery (Pt 1 of 2)

LINKS OF INTEREST:

The Cut (South Korea, 2007); aka Cadaver – Review | AsianMovieWeb

Cadaver (2007) | Korean Film Council (KOFIC)

The Cut aka Cadaver (2007) | SPACE RATS From Outer Space

Cadaver (2007) | FilmAffinity

Korean Movie Reviews for 2007 | KoreanFilm.org

TRAILERS/TEASERS:

Dudadidu. “Cadaver / The Cut.” YouTube, 18 Dec. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_LOIslIEBU.

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