Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: A man unknowingly witnesses the murder of two children which leads to some kind of mental breakdown.
Review: After "Il Mare" I was left still wanting more of the sassy girl herself, Ji-hyun Jun, so I tracked down the closest thing she had to a horror movie besides "Blood: The Last Vampire" (which I already reviewed). Sigh...to call "A Table for Four" a horror is a huge stretch of the definition. Sure, the story does start off with horror elements but, unfortunately, morphs gradually into a psychological thriller only to close things out as a lame melodrama. The whole time I kept wondering what the fuck is happening here?! Besides being genre-confused, the story has a plethora of wasted potential. You have all these amazing ideas without any connection to one another--thus, creating a series of incoherent, unrelated events. And just when you think all of these shenanigans are building up to an epic twist or revelation--that somehow all these pointless plot tangents will come together--the movie simply ends out of nowhere with little to no resolution. Oh goodness gracious.
Starting things off, we meet the main character, Jung-won, as he falls asleep on a train shortly after two little girls sit near him. When he wakes up just in time at the last stop, he notices the two little girls are still there. He hesitates to do something, but, ultimately, decides to go home where he meets up with his fiance. While he was gone, the fiance designed a dining table set in which a spotlight shines on the chairs, opening up all manner of pretentious interpretations from the audience. Come to think of it, this film is loaded with pretentious ideas begging the audience to ask "what does it mean?" I do want to add that the fiance is made out to be an annoying nag, but she's actually more of a sweetheart if you analyze her actions and dialogue. I'd take her off this sleepy douchebag's hands! Anyway, after learning that those two little girls were murdered by their mom, Jung-won starts to see their ghosts or he's feeling guilty; whichever you believe to be occurring. As some kind of architect, Jung-won begins work on the office of a psychiatrist where he finds himself drawn to a depressed woman, named Yeon, played by Ms. Jun. After many fateful encounters with Yeon, Jung-won ends up taking her home after she passes out due to her narcolepsy. When her husband comes to fetch Yeon, she remarks to Jung-won about his kids, implying she sees the ghosts too! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of the horror aspects. What a great setup though, right?
As the film progresses, things become less and less coherent in ratio to the increase in zany antics. Everything with the ghosts is suddenly dropped as the story pursues mindless dramatic plot lines. Of course, Ms. Jun brings such passion to her role, but she can't save this film alone. I'll just run down some plot points the movie emphasizes yet connect to nothing: Yeon lives near Jung-won and goes to his father's church. Jung-won didn't know he was adopted and killed his real father after he ran a child over and hid the body. As a consequence, Jung-won also accidentally killed his sister. Jung-won has been haunted by these memories and believed they were just nightmares. Yeon's best friend killed Yeon's kid and there is some, unspoken relationship going on there. Yeon's husband thinks Yeon actually killed the kid. Yeon's weird friend commits suicide in a fashion similar to an incident earlier in Yeon's life when a crazy cat lady killed herself. Likewise, we randomly see a dying cat in the same exact spot where that cat lady died. Yeon's husband believes she's cheating with Jung-won and Jung-won's fiance believes he's cheating with Yeon; neither of these passive bitches tries to figure out the truth. Yeon claims she and Jung-won have psychic-esque abilities...okaaay? Yeon eventually commits suicide and her ghost happily haunts Jung-won?! Don't get me wrong, if some ghost that looks like Ji-hyun Jun wants to haunt my dinner table, please do!
I'm only scratching the surface of plot tangents that go unresolved. The story is a complete fucking mess. However, what kills me is the lack of bringing things together. My fucking goodness...the solution was staring these idiots right in the face. Simply reveal that Yeon was Jung-won's sister! His memories were hazy enough to not know for sure if she died. It would explain why the two are drawn to one another, why only they can see the ghosts, why they're both so damn sleepy, and, for me, explain why there was no romance between the two despite them feeling so close to each other. Or, if a familial bond is too cliched, then add something--anything--to bring this shit show together meaningfully. As it stands, you have nothing more than a series of events that serve more as padding than to enhance the story and characters. Hell, the level of nonsense is so high you could very easily argue the whole movie was in Jung-won's head after he was hit by the debris that fell out of the ceiling.
I'm blaming a lack of direction for why this movie fails. There appears to be no planning to the events or how to incorporate them together. Furthermore, the genre keeps changing when a solid horror premise was established only to be squandered. The acting is decent and there are good ideas and visuals scattered about, however, this simply reminds you that this could have been a significantly better film. As much as Ms. Jun is growing on me with each passing film I see her in, this is not worth seeking out. Overall, the story is disjointed and disappointing, the ending is lackluster and unresolved, and I hate seeing potential wasted in this manner.
Notable Moment: When Jung-won's fiance tells the story about people praying for rain but only one person having faith enough to bring an umbrella. Not sure if it was made up for the movie or an existing morality tale, but it was quite poignant and the only aspect I thought about after the movie was over.
Final Rating: 5/10
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