DVD Review: Into the Mirror

Seong-ho Kim’s 'Into the Mirror' is another hit for the East's world domination for spooky goings on. Tartan have pulled out the stops and given this a 2-disc treatment that will have the hairs on your neck standing on end and hesitantly looking at your reflection. A large department store suffers a fire under strange circumstances and there are fatalities. One year later, the store is almost at the point of opening up again to the public. Then an apparent suicide is found inside. Her throat is slit and, Wu Young-min (Ji-tae Yu) the security guard, thinks that all is not as it seems.

Wu has a chequered past. He used to be a cop but was forced to leave after he was blamed for his partners death. This still haunts him on a daily basis. Strange noises and shadows are over the store and the threat of a postponed opening is enough to send shivers down the Director’s spine. Protestors too have taken to the streets, since there has been no settlement to the parties of the fire the previous year. The cops get involved when another death happens. Heo Hyeon-su (Myeong-min Kim), Wu’s ex-rival and best friend of his deceased partner, heads the investigation. Heo believes that Wu has still to answer for his friend’s death and may have a hand in these latest events.

More and more spooky events take place and some in grisly fashion. Events unfold, and we find out that the fire was a cover up and the death intentional but what leads you there I will leave it to your movie viewing pleasure. It's just a shame that the ending seems a little bit of a stretch and a let down after such a wonderful build up. Mirrors are everywhere in this baroque movie. Every scene has a reflective surface somewhere. Shiny and bright, images are all over each shot and at times you do not know if you are looking at a reflection or the real thing. Kudos to the camera-team here, as this is a spooky masterwork of setting, lighting and mood. It is not the first time that mirrors have been used to reveal some hidden item, some innermost demon or even some alternate universe. From vampires to Alice, the mirror has been used in literature as a doorway or symbolism of an empty soul. Movies too have shown this. Dracula had a smashing time, Alice went to Wonderland and little Danny Torrence showed the meaning to his redrum ranting. From classics to little slices of exploitation, mirrors have played a vital part but ‘Into the Mirror’ they are an integral working for the story. A nice touch too to see Jan Van Eyck's painting 'The Arnolfini Portrait', full of symbolism and showing the artist in a reflection, more mirrors. This is a great 2 disc set. Tartan seems to have set a standard release format for these. Disc 1 is the movie in Dolby 2.0 channel, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS options, with crisp optional subtitles, a theatrical trailer and on occasion, as we have here, an audio commentary from the director with optional subtitles.  Then there is a loaded second disc full of extras.

This second disc kicks off with the incredible ‘The Film in Storyboards’. The director introduces this extra, explaining the detail they went into before principle shooting, stating that every scene was storyboarded. That is exactly what you have here ! The storyboards are shown with the actual movie playing in a corner of the frame. Next is a 6-segment behind-the-scenes, almost totalling 80 minutes' worth ! This is worth the price alone and shows some great moments and insights from the cast and crew. A ‘deleted scene’ is also included, but this is somewhat mis-titled as this is a collection of deleted scenes and we are shown the actual finding of the first victim, handing over some evidence to the police, the stores workers getting spooked at a bloodied mirror from a protestor’s prank as the pack the shelves, a reference to missing employee files and more on the protestor’s prank. It’s easy to see why the first few were deleted as it gives away too much information at too early a stage. The rest were deleted for continuity as when the protestor’s prank was cut, all other scenes that referred to it had to be trimmed too.

Music video for the movie by Cherry Filter, aptly titled ‘Blood of the Witch’ almost starts the brain cells to think of Argento’s surreal mirrored horrors of ‘Inferno’. The 3 minutes of music however is as far away from Keith Emerson’s score to the Argento classic. A short and sweet 22-second TV spot fills the bag that is disc 2. Both discs have superb animated mirror imaged menus with thumping music, using a shard as an icon. This is another Eastern chilling thriller, similar in tone to 'Tale of Two Sisters', 'Dark Water' and 'Ringu', so it’s not surprising that Hollywood cannot stop the remakes coming.