Search - Cinderella on DVD

No Glass Slippers Here

Captain Insanity | NY | 08/07/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Buried under two pages of Disney movies,
you'll find this ruined gem.
Let me start by saying that
I am obviously retarded for cover art.
It always tricks me into buying movies,
that I know absolutely nothing about.
Tartan Asia Extreme usually has some dynamite flicks too.
This one however...is not one of them.
I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet.
I'm not here to tell you what this movie is about.
You can read that above in the item description.
And it sounds really cool....right?........right?

I found that the scenes moved way too quickly.
As soon as I figured out what was going on.
The scene was over.
The story jumped around like an epileptic cricket.
As soon as I grasped it, BOING.
There was little to no gore, which the cover definitely suggests.
One scene with two Korean girls slashing each others faces with scalpels,
which sounds much cooler than it really looks,
especially when dealing with a squeamish camera.
There was about one creep out, but it was all the way at the end of the movie.
And if you're conscious long enough, you might see it.
There was a good story here too, that really suffered from the erratic storytelling.
Don't get me wrong it had alot of potential,
but it definitely needs plastic surgery.

MORAL OF THE STORY
Beauty may only be skin deep, but ugly is to the bone."

Average Korean horror

Dancing Ganesha | Bangalore, India | 07/08/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is a very average Korean horror. The storyline with its essence of sadness and motherly obsessions (and see the back cover photo for proof) borrows heavily from "A Tale of Two Sisters," and the emotional aspect here was a bit too obvious and easy to decipher, whereas in "A Tale of Two Sisters," you truly are stumped and mesmerised. I can't say I enjoyed this Asia Extreme release as I have others, but it's still a lot better than the typical American horror film of today."

You've seen it done before, and better.

Robert P. Beveridge | Cleveland, OH | 12/01/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Cinderella (Man-dae Bong, 2006)

Cinderella, Man-dae Bong's second feature, comes off as a cross between Waterland and Eyes Without a Face, with a dash of John Woo thrown in for good measure. Which you've gotta admit sounds really freakin' cool. And it would be, if this movie had the merest shred of, say, coherence. Since it doesn't, you have to pay extra attention to figure out what's going on; problem is, it's not a good enough movie to really command that level of attention.

Here's what I could piece together of the plot: Yong-hee (Punch Lady's Ji-won To) is a plastic surgeon and single mother, raising her daughter Hyun-su (Young Bride's Se-kyeong Shin). All of Hyun-su's friends want plastic surgery, and of course Yong-hee is more than happy for the business. Things start going wrong, however, when Suk-yung (So-min Jeong in, to date, her only screen appearance), whom we see getting a nose job in the opening scene, starts hallucinating soon after the operation. Others who have had surgery start acting strange as well, leading Hyun-su to investigate what's going on.

Drawing from sources as disparate as Time (the Ki-Duk Kim film), Waterland, Face/Off, and even the Ghost School films, Cinderella was either going to be a classy effort or a derivative mess, and we ended up with the latter. Once you've figured out all the loose threads of derivation, the movie falls apart. That said, here's something confusing for you: while the plot becomes entirely predictable, the movie is still entirely incoherent. Figure that one out. While I obviously can't say for certain, not having been around when Kwang-soo Son (Bloody Beach) was writing the script, it seems to me as if the pieces that were selected to go into this film were chosen with social commentary in mind (I keep reading in reviews of the film about the ubiquitous mania for plastic surgery in Korea, and I can see that reflected in a number of characters' attitudes here), but no one thought to revise any of them to make sure they all fit together, so the two threads of the plot never actually come together, making for an unsatisfying movie-watching experience. There are many better examples of Asian thrillers running around (such any any of the films of the aforementioned Ki-Duk Kim); check one of those out, instead. * ½"