Directed by: Bong Man-dae (봉만대) Starring: Do Ji-won (도지원), Shin Se-kyung (신세경), An Gyu-ryun (안규련), Yoo Da-in (유다인), Jeon So-min (전소민), Ahn Ah-yung (안아영) Release Date: August 17th, 2006
There have been numerous retellings of the classic Cinderella fairy tale story but none have been more dark and deranged than South Korea’s 2006 horror offering Cinderella. The film is a curious mix of haunting ghost story and tragic family drama that like this year’s Beauty Water (2020) shocks with plastic surgery inspired freak-outs that include facial cutting and other body disfigurements in tandem with classic horror elements. Cinderella is a dark tale that contrasts beauty with disfigurement, and possession with letting go.
Cinderella was not received well when it opened in 2006 and I suspect that the upsetting subject matter as well as viewer fatigue setting in over the abundance of similarly marketed horror films and slashers featuring teenage girls at the time. But looking back today, Cinderella is one of those rare breeds of high-production horror that feels to have had the freedom to run with its original concept and go all out with its dual front approach to drama and terror.
Hyun-su (Shin Se-kyung) is a bubbly teenage girl who has just begun her summer vacation. She lives happily with her mother Yun-hee (Do Ji-won), who is an independently wealthy plastic surgeon. Hyun-su excluded, all of her friends are interested in plastic surgery and are eager to enhance their beauty. Two of her friends, Hae-won (Jeon So-min) and Jae-hee (Ahn Ah-yung) have previously undergone plastic surgery from her mother.
One day, Hyun-su’s best friend Su-gyeong (Yu Da-in) decides to undergo a facial surgery from her mother. Afterwards, Su-gyeong’s newfound confidence gives her the courage to model during a sculpting class at Hyun-su’s private art academy. But when she suddenly hallucinates being slashed in her face, Su-gyeong begins to regret the operation and goes into a depression. Before long, Su-gyeong is found dead in her room with her face half torn-off. Fear and confusion strike the girls who begin to become tormented with horrific visions and wind up dead one after the next.
When Hyun-su begins to suspect her mother is hiding something, she reaches out to her estranged father to help answer a haunting mystery surrounding her past. But unlocking the door to her mother’s secret opens up a horrific trauma that begins a destructive psychological unraveling that she may never recover from.
Even though I rightfully predicted the twist in Cinderella almost halfway through, the film bends the perspective of each scene to reflect the warped psychological state of its characters so I found myself constantly second-guessing my hypothesis. A simple camera can pan to the left in one scene to reveal a character entering through a door can suddenly cause a shift in time that make for some creative flashbacks that offer frightening revelations for the present.
As with a lot of K-Horror, the cast of Cinderella is female dominated. Do Ji-won (Entangled) is perfectly cast as Hyun-soo’s mother, whose role in the film subtly creeps towards that of the evil stepmother. Something just seems off about her character almost from the beginning, and uncertainty brews beneath the surface of the story until her hidden motives are revealed. Shin Se-kyung (Tazza: The Hidden Card) as Hyun-su, or the Cinderella of the story, is great from the start but really puts her talents on display in the finale as I could almost feel the terror and agony Hyun-su experiences as her face is literally about to be removed. Her friends, who would perhaps take the role of the stepsisters in the Cinderella story, bring a lot of energy to the film and spill a bulk of the film’s blood.
There isn’t a prince charming per say in this iteration of Cinerella, but Hyun-su’s father does offer a ‘glass slipper’ of sorts. Hyun-su defies her mother to visit the concert hall (the ball?) where he works and is given an answer to a lifelong question that sets her free in a sense. But this new freedom is a dangerous world outside the overly protective clutches of her mother, and Hyun-soo lacks the strength in her wings to fly away safely. This is a tragic love story between a mother and her child, and the breakdown of the mother-daughter relationship in Cinderella was unexpected to say the least. But in typical Korean fashion, the weight of the drama hits quite hard and is complicated by an amazing musical score.
There are common Asian horror features in Cinderella that include excess amounts of hair, slow-crawling across the floor, and hands coming out of random objects to grab unsuspecting ankles and faces for a few jump scares, but Cinderella stands out as very unique in its own right as an epic campfire-esque ghost story with the stylistic choices it makes.
Cinderella was made during a very interesting time when the K-Horror genre was highly experimental. American horror offerings of the time typically came with high entertainment value with an emphasis on the creative death scene (Final Destination, Saw etc). And while there was a lot of death by numbers on the Korean side, many stories favored taking deep dives into the dark recesses of the mind to explore how insecurities, traumas, loneliness, other unfavorable experiences like bullying can shape our realities. Cinderella is one such film that takes bold chances with its disturbing spin on a classic story.
If you enjoy this content and would like to support our ability to continue to update and increase the quality of our content.
