“Bloody Reunion” Theatrical Poster
Director: Im Dae-woong
Cast: Oh Mi-Hee, Seo Young-Hee, Yeo Hyeon-Soo, Lee Ji-Hyun, Yoo Sul-Ah, Lee Dong-Kyu, Kim Eung-soo, Jang Sung-Won, Park Hyo-Joon, Lee Tae-Rim
Running Time: 93 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Pick any Asian horror from the early to mid-2000’s, and there’s a high chance you’ll encounter a long black-haired ghost, inevitably showing up to terrorise the cast and seek revenge for a past wrong. A trend that was started by Japanese director Hideo Nakata’s successful adaptation of Koji Suzuki’s novel Ringu, the 1998 production of the same name popularised the image for several years after. However in Hollywood movies like 2004’s Saw and 2005’s Hostel were bringing a different type of horror movie back to the table, eschewing silent dread for the more visceral thrills of gratuitous blood and gore, and in Asia the trend also caught on. Movies like Taiwan’s Invitation Only, Hong Kong’s Dream Home, and Indonesia’s Macabre all took the slasher flick template, and put their own spin on it with plenty of blood spilled for good measure.
Korea was certainly no different, and in 2006 they got in on the action with To Sir, With Love. Setting expectations straight out of the gate, the opening utilises rapid fire editing to show a mother giving birth to a deformed baby, jumping forward in time to show him as a child being raised in the basement of an isolated seaside house. When the plot starts in earnest its 16 years later, and a grizzled detective (Kim Eung-soo – Ransomed, A Violent Prosecutor) shows up at the same property to discover a gruesome scene involving several murder victims in the basement. Taking the only survivors to the hospital, an elderly matriarch (Oh Min-hee – The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion, Magic Hour) and her carer (Seo Young-hee – Bedevilled, The Night of the Undead), Yong-hee begins to detail what took place to the detective, unfolding onscreen as an extended flashback.
The victims were all the now grown-up students of Min-hee, a former teacher who’s become wheelchair bound due to a debilitating illness, and is looked after by another former student in the form of Young-hee. Sensing that Min-hee doesn’t have much time left, she sends out an invite to her former classmates to join them at Min-hee’s home for a lunch, and 5 accept the offer. Played by Lee Dong-kyu (Red Eye, Epitaph), Yeo Hyun-soo (Holiday, Bungee Jumping of their Own), Yoo Seol-ah (in her only role), Lee Ji-hyun (Link, Grand Prix), and Park Hyo-joon (Badland Hunters, A Dirty Carnival), while the lunch starts off pleasantly enough, as the day progresses tensions start to fray. It gradually becomes clear that none of them have particularly fond memories of being taught by Min-hee, however before their true intentions for being there can be revealed, the arrival of a murderous maniac begins to pick them off one by one.
Wearing a self-made bunny mask, could it be that Min-hee’s deformed son has returned to take revenge? To Sir, With Love (apart from misgendering the character in reference!) was the debut of director Im Dae-woong, and as a filmmaker in subsequent years has stayed within the realms of the horror genre. He’d go on to helm House of the Disappeared in 2017, and contributed to segments in the omnibus movies Horror Stories in 2012, and more recently in 2023’s Tastes of Horror. From the opening frames of To Sir, With Love it’s clear that Dae-woong has a love of the genre, particularly the slasher, and once the killer makes themselves known things get surprisingly gory, so much so that I struggle to think of a Korean production which has matched it since.
More than the burgeoning ‘torture porn’ genre that was taking hold across the pond though, much of the violence here feels like it owes a debt to Italian masters like Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci. Particularly the first kill, that includes close-up shots of a knife slashing through clothing material, feeling like it was filmed in such a way to evoke a similar shot that Argento filmed in Tenebre for one of the kills. The sadistic streak that permeates through the basement set scenes definitely leans into the Fulci influence, with compasses and staplers being utilised to wince inducing effect, and of course one scene sees particular attention paid to the eyes.
Considering so much of Korea’s horror output over the years has fallen back on the same old tropes of false jumps scares and underwhelming payoffs, there’s something undeniably satisfying at witnessing director Dae-woong’s commitment to going all in on the nastiness once it rears its head. Framed within the confines of a punchy 90-minute runtime, there’s little pause for breath once the killings start, and most importantly there’s a genuine sense of threat whenever a character suddenly finds themselves separated from the rest.
The chemistry between the cast certainly helps to smooth out some of the rougher edges (admittedly I wasn’t sure if some of the jittery camerawork early on was looking to invoke a documentary feel, or was just poor framing). As the audience we gradually discover the reasons why each one of them has grievances with their old teacher, however how spiteful each one continues to feel towards her varies, with some willing to show more forgiveness than others, which serves to further ratchet up the tension. When another former student arrives who’s never left the small town they went to school in, played with an aura of mystery by Jang Sung-won (Tumbleweed, Bloody Shake), it adds further shades of grey to a cast of characters who all come with their own moral contradictions.
While I’m always on the fence around how much nostalgia should play a part in reviewing a movie, as a fan of Korean cinema since the early 2000’s it brought a smile to my face to see a scene in which the police go to knock on someone’s apartment door, and half of them are armed with steel baseball bats. At some point in the 2010’s when the Korean film industry started intentionally looking to appeal to a more international audience, such scenes became a thing of the past, as the producers probably realised it’s not the smartest idea to have their police force portrayed as a bunch of baseball bat wielding thugs. However during the 00’s such scenes were commonplace, and even though here they don’t get to use them, it was still a welcome hark back to an era when Korean cinema wasn’t so self-conscious about how it’s received beyond its own shores.
The final reel of To Sir, With Love throws in an unexpected twist that will likely split audiences down the middle. On the one hand it begs for the entire thing to be re-watched with a fresh pair of eyes, knowing what’s to come and framing many scenes in a different context, elevating what’s so far been a straightforward slasher flick into something more complex and haunting. On the other hand, the twist effectively negates a character who many will have been expecting to show up at some point, leaving a feeling of mild disappointment by their no-show. Ultimately opinions will vary as to if it makes To Sir, With Love a better movie, or if it’s a bait and switch that betrays audience expectations. Either way it’s a bold move, and certainly makes it an entertaining talking point.
Korea rarely dips its toes into the slasher genre, with the only other example that springs to mind being 2000’s Bloody Beach, so to see it executed so effectively, and with a director at the helm who clearly means business when it comes to the all-important kills, feels like a rare pleasure. There are underlying themes of how Korean society looks down on the poor and those in positions of power take advantage of the vulnerable for those who choose to look for them, but for everyone else, if all you’re after is an unfiltered 90 minutes of gruesome chaos, then To Sir, With Love more than delivers.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7/10
