ALICE: Boy From Wonderland (2015) – Korean Movie Review

What lies down this rabbit hole?
by July 18, 2015

The world premier of Huh Eun-hee’s Alice: The Boy From Wonderland just took place at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2015.

downloadAlice: BOY FROM WONDERLAND (앨리스: 원더랜드에서 온 소년)

  • Directed by: Huh Eun-hee
  • Starring: Jung So-min, Hong Jong-hyeon, Lee Seung-yeon, Jeong Yeon-joo, Kim Joon-heyong
  • The Film: Hye-joong (Jung So-min) has been suffering from terrible nightmares that are wrecking her life. At the guidance of a shaman, she decides to go to a guest house in the woods, “Wonderland”, to help find the cause of her nightmares. There, she meets a mysterious man named Hwan (Hong Jong-hyeon), and has 15 days to solve the riddle of her nightmares. If she fails, there could be disastrous consequences.

Review

First of all, director Huh Eun-hee deserves praise for her vision and attempting to make a film that blends the three genres of fantasy, romance, and horror with such a modest budget. There aren’t many of these kinds of movies out there probably because of the sheer difficulty in getting it just right for the audience. Alice: Boy From Wonderland has a story and cast that are small enough to perhaps be able to pull it off. Unfortunately, it undershoots the mark quite a bit.

Hong Jong-Hyun Boy From Wonderland

The actor, Hong Jong-hyeon, plays his part like he knows his face is the real product here and is fairly expressionless and stone-faced throughout the film, with slight movements of his lips when he speaks. This mannequin style of delivering dialogue seems to be an thing nowadays in Korea with these feminine yet handsome actor types. Regardless, he surely pleases his fans well here; but may not have given a strong enough performance to acquire new ones.

The two leads have their moments of romance that definitely got Hong Jong-hyeon into some positions and poses to excite his fans, but fails to ignite a spark bright enough to have their closeness come off as believable for the rest of us. The romantic elements felt clunky and out of place in the more heavily suspense driven tale surrounding the mystery of Hye-joon’s nightmares.

Boy From Wonderland Korean Movie

The films best performance came from Lee Seung-yeon playing the shaman lady, Ha-ran. Her character is able to channel information about Hye-joon’s nightmares and gives her and her mother guidance on how to proceed to cure herself of them. She stands out as the more seasoned actress and outclasses even the leads with her on-screen presence. Also, Ha-ran’s eccentricities as the friendly shaman lady provide the film with some much needed comic relief between the scenes of melodrama and scares. The film also relies heavily on Ha-ran’s dialogue to explain the reasons behind the trajectory of the narrative. Imagining the film without this character would leave the story near incomprehensible save for the rapid tying up of loose ends style editing near the end.

As far as the horror elements of the film go, they are actually quite tame. Any seasoned horror or thriller viewer looking for a new scare should look elsewhere. Here, you have all your standard scare shots and you know when they are coming. Anything suspenseful is just your typical increased volume bass rumble; and the scares that made some people jump were mostly high pitched shrills with a quick pan of the camera.

Jung So Min

The final product feels like not much more than a drawn out advertisement for the two attractive leads, Jung So-min and Hong Jong-hyun. That being said, the actors and the picture itself look fantastic. I can’t confirm it but the picture looks to be shot at a very high frame rate, giving the actors an incredibly sharp image on screen (almost too realistic for my tastes). Almost every shot of the two leads has them looking like they are modeling for the Gap.

Even though Alice: Boy From Wonderland is being marketed as a romantic fantasy horror, I would actually recommend this film to people (mainly girls who like dreamy looking mystery boys to protect them from danger) who do not like scary movies. The scares are minor enough here to not cause any nightmares or bladder malfunctions; and are slightly balanced out with a passable attempt at romance.

Boy From Wonderland Korean film

At best I would rate this a decent made-for-TV movie that is worth watching for fans of the leads. For any guy whose girlfriend wants to watch this movie with you, it is actually not a bad movie to sit through, and might make for good evening entertainment.

World Premier Photos/Video

4.8
Alice: Boy From Wonderland
  • Acting
    4.5
  • Story
    4
  • Direction
    5.5
  • Technical
    4.5
  • Art
    5.5
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Categories
Korean MoviesReview

by Tyler Colosimo - Jul 16, 2015

by Tyler Colosimo - Jul 19, 2015

Tyler is a passionate fan of East Asian cinema, especially South Korean films which he has followed closely for nearly two decades. He started one of the Pacific Northwest's first Korean Cinema Clubs out of the University of Idaho in 2004, where he also spent a year abroad studying Japanese at Nagasaki University of Foreign Languages. Since 2011, Tyler has been living and working in Seoul, South Korea as a freelance English teacher and writer. He also spent one year studying at Sogang University's well-known Korean Language program.
5 Comments on this post.
  • solarmagnet
    6 September 2015 at 8:48 pm -

    first pic, you spelled hyeon, heyon

    • Tyler C.
      6 September 2015 at 9:21 pm -

      Updated! Thank you =)

  • Niken Rose
    27 January 2016 at 1:49 am -

    I don’t understand the ending. Can you tell me please? Thankyou 🙂

    • Tyler C.
      27 January 2016 at 3:00 am -

      I have to apologize, it has been almost seven months since the screening and my write-up so I’m unable to recall the specific details of the ending. I’m due for another viewing when it comes around on Blu-ray perhaps…That being said, I do remember at the time also being somewhat confused about the ending; and that it was intended to be a bit open to interpretation. The nature of being “in wonderland” seemed to give the story freedom to bend logic and reality some. Also there was that rapid sequence that included multiple events/twists at the end that attempted to explain many things. I remember wanting to “rewind” the film in the theater saying to myself “Uhh, say that again?” So, I would say give the ending another watch and see if you can make some sense out of it. I do believe the film’s editing and story-telling are to blame for your confusion though.

    • coolturer
      12 June 2016 at 4:37 am -

      The ending looked like the girl either went back to Wonderland or the guy lived. It’s really confusing whether the ending was even real or not but the people were able to see and hear him so he might be alive after all. This is just the literal view of the ending though.

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