▲主题整理▲1998金知云《安静的家族》The quiet family

阿韩 · 发表于 2004-6-27 16:54

金知云作品
主演：宋康昊、崔岷植、高昊敬、朴仁焕

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【其他译名】死不张扬离奇失魂事件
韩国Cine21权威电影杂志剧本创作比赛最佳编剧；
1999第49界柏林国际电影节官方竞赛单元入围；
1999第19界葡萄牙国际奇幻电影节：最佳电影大奖；
1998第18回韩国映画评论家协会赏：美术赏；
1998第2回富川国际奇幻电影节参展；
1998第3回釜山国际电影节[韩国映画全景]单元参展；
比利时1999布魯塞爾国际电影节参展；
巴西1999圣保罗国际电影节参展；
瑞典1999斯德哥尔摩国际电影节[亚洲印象]单元参展；
埃及1999开罗影展参展；

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电影导读

老实本分的爸爸，聪明能干的妈妈，总是长不大的是叔叔，傻傻的大儿子，青春期多愁善感的大女儿，还有一个古怪的小女儿。。。。在爸爸的公司破产后，本想开家小旅馆养家糊口度日子，不料不受人控制的事情阴差阳错的接连发生，一家子为了掩盖真相，越陷越深，于是原本朴实一家子，便上演了一场让人蹄笑皆非的家族怪谈。这是一部典型的Cult film，一部极其出色又有趣的黑色怪鸡电影！金知云（《蔷花，红莲》导演）一鸣惊人的处女作。

电影开首不久，镜头从室内渐移至室外，画面是灰蒙蒙的天，人迹渺茫的荒野中，一栋欧式老木屋，此时舒伯特的《Moment Musical in F Minor》突然响起，充满黑色幽默感。之后的情结，便完全在让人意想不到的荒诞中展开，一家人也变得越来越神经质。假如还有一个清醒的人，无疑便是那个古怪的小女儿，她是影片中唯一一个置身于情节之外的人物，就如影片一开始和结束时她一个人疑惑紧张的望着镜头，或许戏里戏外的世界，都是她所不理解的世界。

影片制作于1998年，也就是韩国金融危机爆发的第二年。很明显，这是部讽时喻世之作，一部荒诞的写实剧。金知云以这部家族怪谈隐射金融风暴前后的畸形社会。

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影评区

死不张扬离奇失魂事件——The Quiet Family

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海报剧照
http://www.movist.com/movies/vie ... &tp=p&num=1

Asiandb：http://www.asiandb.com/browse/mo ... stuff&stuff=452

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影音区

片段：mms://vod.hani.co.kr/cine21/multi/trailer/i-j/joyong.asf
电影简介（前面是蔷花红莲，安静家族在后半的段）：http://220.73.158.240/special/mo ... 0k_200306070008.asf

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[ Last edited by 阿韩 on 2004-8-13 at 12:05 AM ]

阿韩 · 发表于 2004-6-27 17:08

English reviews

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With their father fired, a family repairs an old mountain cottage in a little town secluded from Seoul and makes it an inn. Contrary to the family's hope that the inn will be flooded with guests, there is no sign of a single one for several days after the opening. Soon the family's frustration is on the surface. The parents are anxious, the hobo uncle's only work is bumbling cartoons, the son is simple and temperate, the older daughter thinks only of improving herself, and the younger daughter is pale-faced and sensitive. The bizarre characteristics of this family create a combination of horror and comedy when people start dying unexpectedly at the inn. Mina, the youngest of the family, becomes anxious about an ominous story told by an old lady and the strange noises she hears at the inn every night, yet she cannot capture the attention of her family members. As if to prove Mina right, their long-waited first guest, who was welcomed by the family's excessive hospitality, is discovered dead in the very next day. Believing that their last dime has been invested in a business that is about to go up in flames, the family buries the body and swears to be silent. But, as if the house is calling out for death, every guest they receive ends up dead and lead them into covering up serial murder. As they have more bodies to bury, their response becomes more bold and apathetic. The murders and the secret burials become the family's daily routine and a technique they enjoy refining. The escalating degrees of murder and mayhem are played for morbidly comic effect. By the time the family gets used to digging, they face a new crisis: construction is beginning near the cottage and is about to dig up the ground where all those bodies are buried. On the top of that, the conspiracy of a village leader drives this bizarre family into a tighter corner. The Quiet Family cleverly incorporates the armed-Communist commando incident which occurred during the film's production and wittily points out the mass morbid hysteria of Korean Society.
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"Sloughing of the current trend of established specific genres and repeated convention of commercial movies, THE QUIET FAMILY never loosens string of tension and laughter, from beginning to end, with an eccentric storyline that makes a surprise attack on the audience. This film deals with cynical ridicule about the older generation and outsiders' obsession towards the accepted members of society through happenings of a various group of people in a limited space, Mt. Lodge."

"The new emotional approach that has never been shown in Korean films is made in this film by the writer's talent and imaginative power, fusing two genres of comedy and horror and combining the structure of a thriller with the story of familiar description. THE QUIET FAMILY heads toward the black-comedy suitable for Korean culture through the experiment and challenge to the new films genre. "

"THE QUIET FAMILY is as much fun as horror. For this film mixed horror with laughter as well as offbeat black-comedy suitable for Korean's culture and social condition, the director and also the author of this film named it, "The Ruthless Comedy." Among a large group of recent horror movies, THE QUIET FAMILY is the first film to be shown this year in Korea, which has the elements of wit and ruthless black-comedy, a diverse aspects of people and an outstanding psychological description, striking idea and reversal, and deliberately mixed greed with cruelty."

The Splendid Aesthetics of the Exquisite Set

"After about 3 months' discussion and exquisite modeling, the "Mt. Lodge," set in real size, was constructed strenuously with the production cost of about $ 140,000 by the set specialist, Mr. Oh Sang Man, the Director, Kim Ji Woon, and the architect, Yoon Ung Won who graduated from the architect school-Paris la Billet. As the center of the film's contents, events, and existing real space, this 'Mt. Lodge' set is proud of the unprecedented perfection. This set is constructed with tone and colour of the film's image, includes enough space for rough camera work, facilities and consideration for free movement of camera."

Spplied by the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF).

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Director's Statement

THE QUIET FAMILY has family members who represent each different generation crashing among themselves and also with lodgers. The family is left out of the main society and lodgers are the dregs of the main stream.

Through the film, I tried to express mockery and sneer in obsession of outsiders for the main stream and combining it with the black-comedy suitable for our emotion, which I expressed this movie with a new notation, ruthless comedy.

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mindless_junk

Date: 24 May 2003
Summary: Dark and Morbid Fun

The storyline: A Korean family bought a lodging hotel for bargain basement prices in a desolated location. Hotel guests were hard to come by but when the first guest finally arrived, he committed suicide. More guests started to show up... but things did not turn out the way they were hoping... A classic case of be careful what you wish for, because it may actually come true in unexpected ways...

Think of this as Korean version of the "Addams Family". This movie is a showcase of dark humor while several parallel subplots are going on. I especially like the acting of the youngest daughter Mi-na, her looks and mannerism epitomize the dark humor of the entire movie.

Not the funniest movie to come out from the Korea movie industry in recent years, but nonetheless quite enjoyable for those who like dark humor movies like Beetlejuice or Addams Family.

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IMDb user comments for
Choyonghan kajok (1998)
Comments index for Choyonghan kajok

mindless_junk

Date: 24 May 2003
Summary: Dark and Morbid Fun

The storyline: A Korean family bought a lodging hotel for bargain basement prices in a desolated location. Hotel guests were hard to come by but when the first guest finally arrived, he committed suicide. More guests started to show up... but things did not turn out the way they were hoping... A classic case of be careful what you wish for, because it may actually come true in unexpected ways...

Think of this as Korean version of the "Addams Family". This movie is a showcase of dark humor while several parallel subplots are going on. I especially like the acting of the youngest daughter Mi-na, her looks and mannerism epitomize the dark humor of the entire movie.

Not the funniest movie to come out from the Korea movie industry in recent years, but nonetheless quite enjoyable for those who like dark humor movies like Beetlejuice or Addams Family.

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spinali
San Francisco, CA

Date: 8 May 2001
Summary: Black Comic Treat!

I can't account for the lackluster ratings for this on IMDB (though its primary domestic distribution right now is bootleg video, which might account for something.) I saw it at the movies, and it rates as one of the great South Korean black comedies. A bit like Hitchcock, this tells the story of a family that takes over an inn deep, deep in the country - only realizing when they get there it was a big mistake. For one thing, they're miles from any human being. Things take a turn for the macabre when their visitors and guests end up dying under ambiguous circumstances, and the family has to find some way of disposing of the bodies before the cops roll in. Of course, they eventually do come to investigate, making the tale even more twisted than it was before.

Don't let any prejudices against South Korean cinema keep you away; at its best, their film output is second to none, and attracts international favor from film festivals and critics. This film is one of the unequivocal winners.

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spinali
San Francisco, CA

Date: 4 December 2000
Summary: A Black Comic Classic

When a family reluctantly becomes proprietors of an inn deep in the woods, it seems doubtful anyone could find their way there. It doesn't help that the family ends up killing nearly all of their guests -- usually under cover of night (and the blackest possible humor). Imagine Hitchcock's "The Trouble with Harry" steered by a gruesomely dysfunctional family, and you have some idea of what this deadpan South Korean film offers. Still more evidence of that country's continuing film renaissance, and easily up to the standard of the best American films.

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Lagomorph (danspam+imdb@sapros.com)
Berkeley, CA

Date: 29 February 2000
Summary: A slick, entertaining horror sit-com.

This film manages to strike a very tricky balance between humor and suspense. It's funny and tense all at the same time, from start to finish.

It's visually appealing, with interesting characters, and high production values. The acting is uniformly superb, and the plot manages to incorporate good, old fashioned suspense traditions and tropes while remaining fresh and interesting.

If you get a chance to see this, do.

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guido keller (Killer-40)
Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Date: 28 October 1999
Summary: Death after death in a distant hotel

First they have no customers, than they all die. And how to get rid of them when you are not used to it? In the end, the family which runs a hotel in the woods is threatened by itself. For some, those funny and horrifying events are just too much. From the distributor of THE SOUL GUARDIANS, a clear must for all phantasy genre fans and friends of SCREAM(s). I saw the movie on Mailand's MIFED (the film fair), my colleague Ivo was quite interested to buy it for the German DVD-market. Besides, we were both attached by Ilshin Investment Co.'s female representative Lady Suh who taught me how to hand over a business card correctly: with both hands. Believe me, the killing in THE QUIET FAMILY was much more western style ;-)

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Paul Benmussa
Montreal

Date: 26 August 1999
Summary: Amusing black comedy

A very amusing and very black comedy, that plays on the failings of different family members, all trying to run a lodge in the middle of nowhere. A good amount of suspense is combined with the laughs, the film mixing a comedy of errors with slapstick and (many) bloody corpses. Wicked fun definitely not for the whole family.

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The Quiet Family

You can tell right from the long, reeling opening take of this film that it will be an interesting watch. The camera weaves unsteadily through an old mountain lodge, starting on the second floor and then plunging down the stairs before spinning and backtracking up to where it started. Little moments like these add spice to a well-written screenplay and an impressive first feature by director Kim Jee-woon.

This film documents the efforts a family of six who open a lodge at the edge of a mountain trail. At first, no customers come, which leaves them feeling hurt and angry, but their frustration then turns to horror as the guests that do arrive all turn up dead in the morning. The family's efforts to cover up the situation, and the extent to which they become habituated to it, provides the main development in this funny and somewhat sick dissection of human nature.

The film features a couple pretty famous actors in Choi Min-shik (No. 3, Swiri) and Song Gang-ho (also from No. 3 and Swiri), but personally I think that newcomer Ko Ho-kyoung, playing the youngest daughter, turns in the most interesting performance. While the rest of the family, as delightfully eccentric as they may be, can be more or less figured out, the youngest daughter remains a puzzle right up to the end of the film. Her intense, curious stare, which we see again and again throughout the film, invites us to view the family through her eyes, but her unpredictable moods and laughter ultimately deny us the perspective that we need to fully understand the events at the lodge.

koreanfilm.org

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In his 1998 filmmaking debut "The Quiet Family (Choyonghan kajok)", "Foul King (Banchikwang)" director Kim Ji-woon presents an inspiring story about how a crisis strengthens the bonds between the members of a dysfunctional family, bringing them closer together in a rare display of domestic solidarity. Unfortunately, the list of family-building activities represented in this South Korean black comedy includes murder, dumping the corpses into shallow graves, and, of course, staying quiet about it.

The family in question is the Kangs, who have moved from Seoul to operate the Misty Lodge, an isolated mountain lodge. The family is dominated by no-nonsense father Tae-gu (Park In-hwan of "One Fine Spring Day"), with loyal wife (Na Mun-hee) always at his side. The younger members of the family include sex-obsessed son Yeong-min (Song Kang-ho of "Joint Security Area"), clueless daughter Mi-su (Lee Yeon-sung), and sullen daughter Mi-na (Go Ho-kyung). Finally, rounding out the Kang clan is Tae-gu's younger brother (Choi Min-shik, who starred alongside Song in "Shiri").

After a slow start, the Kangs finally receive their very first guest. The joy is short-lived though, as the man is found dead the very next morning, apparently having committed suicide. Concerned that a dead body will 'kill' business and attract unwanted police attention, Tae-gu orders his sons to bury the man in the woods. Unfortunately, this is only the first entry in the Kang list of questionable deeds. Their next customers, a young couple, commit suicide after a passionate night of lovemaking (I dunno, maybe they saw Yoshimitsu Morita's "Lost Paradise"), and once again, the Kang's cover it up.

As the anarchy at the Misty Lodge increases, so does the body count. A hiker who tries to take advantage of Mi-su becomes acquainted with the business end of a shovel. A case of mistaken identity results in an assassination attempt at the lodge to go horribly wrong. To further add to their troubles, the Kangs receive word that the government plans to pave the road in front of the lodge, requiring them to find somewhere else to hide the bodies. And if juggling all these bodies and hiding the evidence wasn't difficult enough already, the police begin sniffing around as part of a missing persons investigation.

"The Quiet Family" finds an easy middle between the two extremes of its story. On the one hand, with its unconventional camerawork and bouncy Western pop soundtrack, the energetic production underscores the individual quirks of each family member (such as Mi-su's complete ignorance of what the rest of the family is up to), as well as the increasingly absurd situations they find themselves in (such as an attempt to incinerate the growing pile of cadavers that goes horribly wrong). However, at the same time, director Kim pushes the horror aspects of the script, and isn't squeamish at shocking the audience with some of the film's more grisly moments, such as the effect of a heavy rainstorm on the shallow graves that the Kangs have dug, or the shock when they one of the bodies unexpectedly comes back to life.

Kim also adds an additional layer of subtlety to "The Quiet Family" by hinting that the events depicted may be apocryphal, being the product of an overactive imagination. Clues are provided in that the story is told from the perspective of Mi-na, a 17-year old full of cynicism and gloom (think Christina Ricci in "The Addams Family"), and she appears in the film's opening scene, where she complains that "it's been thirteen days since we moved from the city... and still nothing has happened", as well as the curious closing scene, which upon an initial viewing, may make little sense.

The ensemble that Kim has gathered is strong. Park is perfect as the brutish family patriarch, and is ably supported by Na as his diligent wife. Popular actor Choi, who has made a career out of playing 'tough guys' (most recently in "Failan"), is cast against type as Tae-gu's dim-witted yet warm-hearted younger brother. The always likable Song, who would later star in Kim's follow-up feature "Foul King", shows off his gift for comic timing that helped establish his acting career. Finally, as the dour Mi-na, Go delivers an appropriately acerbic performance with the requisite amount of dry wit.

If you take your comedies black, then you need to look no further than "The Quiet Family". Straddling the fine line between humor and horror, "The Quiet Family" has developed quite a following at home and on the international festival circuit, including being recently remade by cult Japanese director Takashi Miike as "The Happiness of the Katakuri's (Katakuri-ke no kôfuku)". With the growing popularity of Korean films in international markets, "The Quiet Family" has just been re-released as a Hong Kong-import DVD by film distributor Modern, providing a nice alternative to the older VCD release that lacked English subtitles. Definitely not your ordinary 'family film'.

http://www.mediacircus.net/quietfamily.html

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Story: The parents along with their three children and the uncle, buys a lodge in the forest on a mountain, hoping to make a fortune running their own business. After a few weeks they received their first guest but misfortune strike the family as several of their guests are found dead. To avoid the bad publicity of the deaths in their lodge they decide to bury the bodies in the forest. As the body count increases the family seems to get used to their new way of running the business but unfortunately the police take notice that many people have disappeared in the area.
Review: This is one of the finest black comedies we have ever seen, even if the topic of death might not seem like a laughing matter the situations which the family faces will definitely bring a smile to your face. As the movie continues the family keeps on getting deeper in trouble and their solutions to get out of their predicament are just too funny.

Another strong point about the film are the characters, they are very well portrayed. You eventually get a sense that you know the members of the family and whenever anything bad happens you feel bad for the members of the family. The idea behind the story is simple but how it is all put together is incredible.

We originally saw this movie during the FantAsia 99 festival at which time there was subtitles, after a long exhaustive search we managed to find it on VCD but unfortunately it does not have any subtitles. The comedy is simple enough to be understood but without understanding the dialog you'd miss a lot of what the film has to offer. If you have a chance to see this movie in a movie festival with subtitles or you understand Korean we suggest you check this film out its a rare special find.

http://www.kfccinema.com/reviews ... ly/quietfamily.html

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This brilliant dark comedy inspired Takashi Miike to do The Happiness of the Katakuris which is a musical of this film. The Quiet Family is one of the very first Korean films to start crossing genres. The script is well written and the cast is excellent, making you care for each one of the family members as if you knew them personally. The comedy is pretty quirky. It's kinda like watching The Brady Bunch with the serial killer tendencies of Psycho.
http://aznfilms.com/product_info.php/products_id/975

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The Kangs buy an old inn and relocate from the city, hoping that the simple country life will bring them peace and tranquillity. After two weeks, The Misty Lodge has not had a single customer and this seriously dysfunctional family is starting to come apart at the seams. Finally, late one evening, an odd little man appears out of nowhere and becomes the establishment's first guest. Cement-headed Youngmin (JOINT SECURITY AREA's Song Kang-ho) goes up to his room the next morning, only to find that the man has topped himself during the night. Convinced that they will never have another visitor if the news ever gets out, Mr. Kang (Park In-hwan) orders that the body be dragged out and buried. This does not fully assuage Kang's fears, however; the victim arrived with a wallet full of money, which has since gone missing, and the last one to see him was Youngmin, who was previously in trouble with the law. A young couple arrives soon after but there will be no continental breakfast in their future as they proceed to enact a lovers' suicide pact. Disposing of these two corpses has unexpected complications but some long-delayed road work in the area is finally getting under way and this will ensure a steady stream of clientele. Business indeed picks up but the Kangs' troubles are far from over, thanks to a lecherous traveller (NOWHERE TO HIDE's Park Joong-hoon), a hostage in the storage shed, a nosy police chief, and a ridiculous murder plot cooked up by the man who sold Kang the property. The final straw comes when it is announced that the road in front of Misty Lodge is scheduled for development, meaning that all the corpses the family buried there must be hastily exhumed and disposed of in some other fashion.

This is a splendidly tangled comedy of fatal errors filled with accidental (and not-so-accidental) death, mistaken identity, and corpses that pop up at the worst possible times. Hollywood classics like ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (1944) and THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1955) have mined this vein before but writer/director Kim Ji-woon (who would later team up with Song for THE FOUL KING) makes it all seem fresh, thanks to stylish direction and some really unique touches, like having the macabre goings-on accompanied by up-tempo American music including, of all things, "Ubangi Stomp" and The Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You!". The actors (particularly rubber-faced Song) are all well-chosen but Go Ho-kyung is especially worthy of note as the Kangs' youngest daughter. Early on, Kim gives us a long, unbroken shot of Go in which she stares off into space, while expressing her boredom in voiceover. Are the events that follow merely something she has daydreamed? That might explain why two major occurrences in the final reel are not fully resolved but, since her character does this again at other points, one cannot be entirely sure. Whatever the case, this is a refreshingly inventive and entertaining picture that, while never graphic, is not afraid to stretch the bounds of good taste in search of ghoulish laughs. Choi Min-shik (SHIRI), Na Mun-hee, and Lee Yeon-sung co-star. THE QUIET FAMILY was a success on its home turf and apparently struck a chord with notorious Japanese director Takashi Miike, who remade it last year as THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS. Miike's twisted sensibilities are a perfect match for material like this but you just know that some Hollywood hack is going to see THE QUIET FAMILY at a film festival and convince a major studio to produce a sanitized remake that will "preserve the wit of the original, while leaving aside the less audience-friendly elements." May none of us live to see it.

http://www.dighkmovies.com/v2/111/111.html

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In this impressive first feature by director Kim Jee-woon, a family opens a mountain lodge in the suburbs of Seoul after the father is fired from his company. Although they initially expect a rush of lodgers, the lodge is empty for days. The family wait for customers but can't help growing anxious. At last, the first guest appears two weeks after their opening. Excited, the family lavishes attention on him. However, the guest is found dead the next day. The family panic and suspect their ex-convict son of the murder but decide to bury the body to avoid any risk of ruining their business. The next guests are a couple who commit a double suicide. The family buries them again. The family gets accustomed to digging graves, but soon they realize that the bodies will be torn up by the advanced road construction planned beside their lodge. To make things worse, the family becomes involved in a conspiracy plotted by the head of the village.
http://www.seoulselection.com/shopping_dvd_view.html?pid=283

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THE QUIET FAMILY
Korea, 1999, 97 mins, 35mm, color, Korean w/e.s.

THE QUIET FAMILY is part of a Fall 2000 touring series, FAMILY IN KOREA: INTERPRETATIONS OF THE BASIC UNIT, sponsored by the Korean Cultural Center of Los Angeles, and presented by the Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Stage director Kim Ji-Woon brings an intimate touch to THE QUIET FAMILY, a film debut that mixes three parts humor with one part horror. Dubbed a "ruthless comedy" by its author, this film gives a gleefully wicked spin to the story of a family whose poor choices and bad luck set off a lethal chain of events in a mountain town.

When the recently retired Taegu Kang moves to a remote suburb of Seoul to set up shop as an innkeeper, taking his family and younger brother with him, his biggest problem seems to be a lack of guests. After the Misty Inn's first lodger winds up dead, however, it becomes apparent that things can get much worse. Eager to protect his fledgling business from scandal, Mr. Kang orders his family to bury the body, but a run of bad luck keeps them burying corpses-as well as creating them. Every effort the Kangs make to run a regular business backfires, and their unwilling involvement in local political intrigue only propels them faster towards a hilarious and cataclysmic finale. Driven by a jarringly eclectic score, THE QUIET FAMILY runs, rather than walks, through an elaborate plot and countless scenes of deadly mayhem. The camera floats as deftly through the set's hallways as it ever did in THE SHINING, and neither Park In-Hwan's nor Na Moon-Hee's performances are to be missed. The screenplay's humor is dark indeed, but it gives extra bite to the isolationist theme that permeates the film.

-Thomas Connors

Presented with Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

http://www.naatanet.org/festival/2000/programs/quietfamily.html

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Tae Gu Kang and his family leave the city and set out on a family venture after Tae Gu manages to acquire the Misty Inn Mountain lodge at a bargain price. Unfortunately things aren’t going as planned as construction of the new road leading up to the lodge has been delayed. After nearly two weeks of waiting, their first customer finally arrives and requests a room. The family is only too glad to assist but things take a turn for the worse when the guest fails to show up for breakfast the next morning. Hastily they check on the guest only to find him dead, but they can’t determine if he has been murdered or if he committed suicide. Tae Gu fears that the lodge will be closed if they report his death to the police, so they decide to bury him and tell no one.

   The next day a young couple arrives at the inn to do the old “in-out in-out,” alas they too are found dead the next day after carrying out a suicide pact. Again the family decides their best course of action is to bury the bodies and say nothing. Pretty soon guests are dropping like flies as the family try to cover up their own misguided judgments, but bizarrely they are also getting really into it as they refine their disposal techniques!!!

   Billed as a ruthless comedy, “The Quiet Family” focuses on the Kang family’s struggle to run the mountain lodge. Individually they are a strange bunch, but together they are quite simply unique. And while they try to cover up the untimely deaths of their residents and to excel in their little disposal methods in the process, a bizarrely adept bond is formed between them.

   The film is superbly cast with excellent performances throughout. None of the cast stands out from the rest as they all do their part in making this one of the better comedies I have seen this year. This is not an in-your-face-slapstick comedy, it's more subtle and at times surreal. Just think: how many times have you seen someone trying to fold a dead body in half? Imagine “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” on laughing gas and you are halfway there.

   The pacing is perfect, never really breaking into a sprint but instead opting to amble along pleasantly whilst taking in the sights, of which there are many. Unfortunately not everything is perfect, as once again we are treated to extremely lazy subtitles [not the film’s fault though.] Whilst clean and easy to read they are half finished with many untranslated dialogues. You just need to fill in the blanks, and it doesn’t happen just now and again but throughout the entire movie, which is bloody annoying to say the least. I wonder how much the translators actually got paid for this half-arsed effort. I know I have said this before, but just when will Asian movie houses learn that a market does exist for them outside there own country?

   Nevertheless I was intrigued and entertained by “The Quiet Family” and I for one am looking forward to my next visit to the “Misty Inn.” Director and writer Kim Ji-Woon has unleashed a wickedly entertaining and well shot film upon us, it is just a shame that very few people outside Korea will ever hear of its existence.

© 2002 Simon Tomlinson
http://www.naturalbornviewers.co ... etfamily/review.htm

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Every family has its dysfunctions. Sometimes those dysfunctions can lead to arguments, jealousy, general miscommunication, and murder... That’s right, murder, and it can be pretty funny too, which The Quiet Family (1998) proves.
The Kang family moves from Seoul to the isolated mountains where they have bought and operate the Misty Lodge. The family members are, the father Tae-gu, his crass wife, their daughters- the pretty but clueless Mi-soo and the sullen Mi-na, their dimwit but earnest son Yeong-min, and the kids horny uncle. After two weeks of absolutely no business the family is understandably tense and eager for anyone to stay, just to catch at least one customer to raise their spirits. When they do get that customer, things don’t turn out for the better when he commits suicide in a manner that could implicate the family and further cast the lodge in a bad light. So, rather than suffer the embarrassment, they dump the body in a shallow grave in the woods and try to forget about it. But, unluckily, their next customers, a young couple, also commit suicide, and this time covering up the misfortune takes the family down the next step, making it more than just disposing of bodies. And so begins a comedy of errors for the Kangs. Business gets better but the bodies continue to pile up through accidental and not so accidental deaths, including kidnapping, attempted rape, and a hit man. As if things couldn’t get any worse, a road is going to be constructed across their customer graveyard and the police begin to sniff around.

This is the darkest kind of comedy. One involving the most heartfelt sentiment along with copious amounts of black cruelty and perversely humorous events. I guess the niche it fits best into would be Heathers, Fargo, Arsenic and Old Lace and Happiness. It is little surprise that the film was remade as Happiness of the Katakuris by Japanese bizzarro style and shock god Takashi Miike, who made the similarly dark family comedy Visitor Q.

To give an example of the tone of the humor, the first laugh it got from me is an early scene. The Kangs sit down for a wordless dinner. Mi-na tells us in voice-over how the lack of customers has built up pressure on them, especially their father. The father stone faced, rises from the table, walks off screen, and proceeds to kick the family dog, venting his anger, before returning the table and resumes eating like nothing has happened... It reminded me of a scene in the classic samurai film The Gate to Hell where a frustrated samurai gets spurned by the women he’s obsessed over, so he casuallay kicks a puppy that crosses his path. For those with a dark streak, those who know how funny it is when Otto is torturing poor Ka-Ka-Ken in A Fish Called Wanda, its just giggle inducing. It plays on a fragile, childlike side of human nature, the inability to solve a problem, to vent frustration in any other way than some misplaced act of cruelty and idiocy.

None of these elements would work if the actual family itself wasn’t well-developed. And, like the best comedy of errors, I found I genuinely liked them. Despite the horrible things they do, they do it out of love, out of that basic need to prosper and protect, to support one another. Particularly standout is Yeong-min, who tries to defend his almost raped sister, yet he’s completely incompetent as a fighter, bullishly trying to ram the horny hiker, and then screaming “Ouch, ouch, ouch, my neck!” like a kid when the guy gets him in a headlock.

Make no mistake, director Kim Ji-woon (who followed this debut with the offbeat The Foul King) doesn’t really hold back on the grimness. Attempted rape, bashed in heads, poisoning, burning bodies, vicious hit men, all balanced out by the sheer ineptitude and sour luck of the clan. Now, while I did find it funny, I didn’t think it was hilarious. Most of the film just struck me a chuckle worthy, but if you have an off-kilter taste in comedy and film, it will be right up your alley.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/cl ... ge=1&rid=754772

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A good black comedy is one of those rare gems in cinema. If you love black humor, you can skip over to DVDAsian.com and buy this puppy right now and forget the review. However, for the rest of you that need a little convincing, stick around and read what I have to say about this Korean diamond.

Quiz time. What do you do when your customer dies on you? You bury him of course! No one will be the wiser, and you won't have to worry about the bad press. The whole scheme falls apart when your customers keep on dying, however. Real estate to bury the dead becomes scarce and the police beat a path to your door investigating an inordinate amount of missing person reports.

The former paragraph sums up the situation that this family faces. How they deal with these situations rings up most of the laughs in this flick.

It's not an easy task to pull off a black comedy. The wrong mix of elements can spell disaster. The Quiet Family expertly gives you the giggles even while corpses and blood are on screen. Acting, pacing and direction are all excellent. So too is the look of the film.

One of my favorite parts, is when the family is sitting at the table eating. Some faint noises of the dog eating break what would be a very quiet scene. A little time passes until the father gets up, goes off screen and kicks the family dog for being too noisy. It's a scene that has to be seen in execution to be appreciated.

I recommend this film highly, and I think it serves as a nice introduction to Korean cinema for the curious.

http://www.joshuapettigrew.com/R ... ly/QuietFamily.html

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[ Last edited by 阿韩 on 2004-7-19 at 02:49 AM ]

阿韩 · 发表于 2004-6-27 18:22

snk2029s · 发表于 2006-3-8 08:34

故事題材相當特殊裡面的都是現在的大牌演員順便想問演說旁白的妹妹那個女生是不是現在撥出你好上帝的女主角金玉彬?

马西墨斯 · 发表于 2007-4-30 23:22

这部片看完后感觉真是很诡异,玄幻.这种体裁在当时肯定很新颖.正如楼上所说,里面的大部分主角现在都是韩国家喻户晓的实力派影星.

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▲主题整理▲1998金知云《安静的家族》The quiet family

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