Eun-Soo (Cheon Jeong-myeong) just survived a terrible car accident when
he's lured away from the scene of the crash by a young girl, Young Hee
(Sim Eun-kyung), who invites him into her large house, that's perfect to
the point of high camp, where she lives with her brother Mang-bok (Eun
Won-jae), her little sister Jung-soon (Jang Yeong-nam) and her parents.
Only the parents seem to act strange, and they try to prevent Eun-Soo from
leaving any which way possible, even though his girlfriend is about to
give birth. Eventually, they actually leave him with the kids and go to
never come back ... but soon, Eun-Soo finds out they didn't get far, and
he finds out the kids have some kind of power over them, over him himself,
and over the forest that acts like a living being unwilling to let anyone
escape it. Gradually, Eun-Soo starts to fear the children, even though he
has no idea about what's going on on one hand, on the other he is't even
sure he really believes what is happening. Then one day, two more
visitors show up at the kids' house, deacon Byun (Park Hee-soon) and his
wife Woo-sook ... however, it soon becomes apparent that she is little
more than a common thief - and she eventually gets punished for this -
while he has some sinister motives Eun-Soo starts to fear even more than
the kids. One night, Eun-Soo finds Mang-bok's secret library in the
forest, where he finds hand drawn books upon books of what happened from
the time the kids started living here in the woods some 35 years ago,
onwards, and it becomes apparent that they are actually from an orphanage,
where they were abused and tortured - but for some reason, Mang-bok had
some supernatural powers to make each of his wishes come true, so he
created a cotton candy wonderland for himself and the two girls, where
grown-ups had to adhere to the kids' rules or die bizarre deaths. To his
horror, Eun-Soo has to realize the kids have chosen him to live with them
forever. Meanwhile, back at the kids' house, deacon Byun shows his true
colours - he is actually a wanted shild murderer, and guess who he has
chosen his next victims to be. Even Mang-bok's powers won't be enough now
to save the children it seems ... but since Eun-Soo has found out the
truth about the children, he has chosen to side with them, and together,
he and the kids are able to overcome the deacon. As a thank you,
Young-hee, who has always shown a soft spot for him, tells him how he can
leave after all - all he has to do is to burn the picturebook that
contains his story. And even though Mang-bok could do something to prevent
that, he lets him go ... but back in the real world, cradling his newborn
baby in his arms, Eun-Soo knows he'll never be able to forget the kids ... Somewhat
fascinating combination of horror, serial killer and fairy tale motives
garnered with a healthy dose of surrealism, Hansel and Gretel is
nevertheless not quite the film it ought to be: However interesting the
story might be, the dilm's direction is somewhat conventional, lacking the
fascination with the macabre, the surreal, the bizarre the script keeps
suggesting. That's not to say, Hansel and Gretel is a bad movie,
it's actually rather good, it's just not the other-worldly masterpiece it
could/should have been ...
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