The Cat (Foreign Horror) #MovieReview

The Cat Synopsis: So-yeon gets stuck with a Persian cat when its owner dies. From then on, she is haunted by a girl with green cat-like eyes.

Tagline: How many lives do you have?

Starring:  Min-Young Park, Dong-wook Kim, Ye-ron Kim

Release Date: July 7th, 2011 | Runtime: 1 hr 46 min  | Language: Korean (English Subtitled)

Source: Amazon Rental

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Cat Review

Note: The credits for this movie on IMDB are confusing as all can be. Neither the synopsis or the cast list make a lot of sense, so I referenced Wikipedia, which tells me that Min-Young Park play So-yeon, Dong-wook Kim plays Jun-seok, and Ye-Ron Kim as Hee-Jin (cat girl). That is the list I will be going from. 

The South Koreans know how to do horror. The Cat is no exception to this. One of the things that I loved about The Cat was that even though there were jump scares, they weren’t dependent on loud noises. No claps, bangs, yells, etc. Instead, they gave you a lead in where you saw something a little creepy, and then BAM! Ghost cat-girl staring at you with those eyes. I thought that all the actors and actresses did a great job, especially Min-Young Park. While the cinematography isn’t stunning, I could find no fault in it.

Min-Young Park plays So-yeon, a young woman who works at a pet-grooming shop. She loves her job, and the animals she works with. Its obvious she has a good heart. When a client turns up dead shortly after adopting a cat, So-hee takes the cat in. It’s not long thereafter that the trouble starts. And, to top it it off, So-yeon is already dealing with a problem of her own. This problem is related to a sub-plot that was nice to mull over for a bit.

This movie creeped me out. Now, this is where I remind you all that I am a complete and total wuss, so it probably won’t phase you “hardcore” horror fans out there. But partway through The Cat, I was covering my eyes and peeking through the slits! However, as I’ve swiftly come to expect from foreign horror movies (barring Train to Busan, of course), there’s hardly any blood or gore in the film. A tense atmosphere, building dread, and freaking creepy kid ghost/demon/thingies, but nothing that will turn your stomach. 

There are only two reasons The Cat didn’t get a 5 star rating from me. The first is that the climax is very strongly reminiscent of the ending of The Ring*.Enough so that only the absence of water from the scene really saved it. The second is that I had trouble viewing this as a horror movie after watching it the whole way through.It made it really hard to write this review because I’m used to a ‘you’re all going to die!’ ending. Not a rather sweet, hope-filled wrap-up. (Not griping about how it ended, mind you, just thrown off balance by it.)

Overall, The Cat was really well done and worth the price of rental. I would definitely recommend it to fans of Asian horror. While it’s nothing new or different, it’s a solid piece of a work. Even though the tone shifted towards the end, I still couldn’t look away from it. Whether you view it as a horror or not in the end, it’s a movie I can’t imagine you’ll regret watching.

*I haven’t seen Ringu, so I don’t know if the ending differs from The Ring. I would assume it’s the same, but Americans are weird.

 

Rental Link: Amazon