Resurrection of the Little Match Girl

The movie bombed in the box office. It was one of the most expensive movies to make in Korea. I surely hope this doesn't deter the most innovative and honest artist in Korea from making more masterpieces.

The movie seems strangely main-stream compared to his former movies. (Lies, Bad movie,...) When I first heard that he's making a big-budget fantasy action film, I was worried because I didn't want him to waste time making the same undistinguishable movies as others. But still, I gave him a benefit of doubt, and went to see the movie anyway. And I'm very glad I did.

The story seems borrowed from that old mother goose PC adventure game where everything in the tale is mixed up and your mission is to fix things up so that events unfold according to the original mother goose story.

We have a boy and a girl, who meet in a virtual reality game. We are introduced to many 'colorful' game characters, the most interesting of which is a biker of ambiguous sexuality who's played by the chinese transsexual dancer Sing Jin.

The plot is actually quite incomprehensible and much hyped eye-candies are nowhere near remarkable. Those are the main reason the movie failed in the box office. But probably those are not the point of the movie. I think the movie is trying to show the harsh reality veiled under the high-tech sheen. The power levels and the favorite things of characters - which are shown on-screen when the game characters are introduced - do not tell anything about the character just as the praises about the fast economic growth of Korea doesn't tell about the cultural, emotional vacancy at the heart of the country.