Red Shoes

Imagine walking around somewhere and you find this pair of nice shoes. Would you dare pick them up?
How dangerous can a pair of red high-heeled shoes be? Are they worth dying for? Literally!

Age Rating: 15+
Company: HK Bootleg
Genre: Korean Horror
Running Time: Approx 103 mins
Region: 3



Quite the risque front cover!
This is the Korean version of Hans Christian Andersen's cruel fairy tale, 'Red Shoes'. The story unfolds with Sun-Jae, a bored housewife under the thumb of her business-orientated husband. Together, they have a six year old daughter Tae-Soo who attends her ballet lessons at a posh school. One fateful day Sun-Jae while searching for her daughter to pick up (she managed to lose her lol) goes back home early and finds what her husband has been really up to! Business sessions indeed!
Needless to say, Sun-Jae moves out with her daughter and downgrades to a shabby studio ala Dark Water style. During this time we find out she's really an optician and plans to use the studio as her new source of income. The slimey interior designer makes some moves on her and yes we know what's going to happen!



Sun-Jae, a few days later: finds a pair of 'red shoes' (looks more like pink to me) in the subway out of nowhere! Amazing! She takes them and adds it to her collection of high heels. The strange thing about these shoes is that every female near the 1337 heels is drawn to it's power and feel the need to try them on. Tae-Soo does exactly this and strange things to start to happen. Mother and daughter start to fight for the red high heel shoes in quite a disturbing manner nearly killing each other in the process! Really, fighting a six year old! :o
The wearer of these 'magic' shoes act in a different way as if almost possessed - or is that because they wear make-up? Sun-Jae in particular, takes a complete turn around in personality almost dragging her bit on the side (The interior designer) into it.
The shoes have a past of their own going back to when Japan colonised Korean in the mid 1950's and the wearer gets a quick flashback. But we never know why the shoes kill? I sense a plot hole!
When Sun-Jae finds out that whoever takes the red shoes off her, they die. She's horrified because her daughter could be the next one on the shoes dinner table! It's a race against the evil shoes and return them to their owner's grave. Sounds just like Ring!



The Red Shoes initially starts of like a soap/drama - with a torrid affair and the poor single divorced wife on the rebound with her slimy interior designer. However it's a bit more than that, some parts were interesting like how the colonised Korean flashback managed to integrate with the story. But the story itself was a mishmash of Dark Water, Ring and a hint of A Tale Of Two Sisters - then manages to not be as good as any of them!
Footprints on the wall, blood laced snowflakes and leg choppng. Gritty stuff! I've never seen so much blood in one place since watching Battle Royale! Personally I think it's a bit OTT but fun. Though I found when the poor six year old blood had lots of blood gushing between her legs was a bit much! It filled the whole room! The special effects was well done (those Koreans know how to put good budgets on horror films!) and the acting was great - especially the little girl.
The story itself is where the biggest flaws are, most parts felt a bit unecessary and as expected had the so-called big plot twist after the climax of the film. But it wasn't a good twist, as I saw it coming at least thirty mins before hand!
It's something different and retains the horror feel with cheap thrills and lots of blood, but against something like A Tale Of Two Sisters it ends up being merely average.

Pros
+ Interesting flashbacks
+ Good acting and special effects
+ Blood!

Cons
- Story cliched
- Plot holes!
- Too much blood in places!
- Romance factor not necessary

Overall:5/10

Give me school-girl horror over this anyday! Now where did those shoes go?