This time out your Favorite Catgirl Movie Reviewer is off to Korea for another slice of atmospheric Asian flavored horror, “Yoga”. Creepy goings on in an evil ashram, where the quest for physical perfection takes a terrible, terrible wrong turn are the theme of the day. Seems we’re in for another look at the problems of  Asian women and their self-image issues with the customary horror twist that the Koreans love to add.

The synopsis goes like this: “Successful at her job until she was out shined by a younger, prettier co-worker, a confident and perfectionist career woman, Hyo-jung, visits a strange yoga institute run by a mysterious ex-actress at the advice of a radically transformed school friend. There, Hyo-jung meets several other women like herself, a former popular singer who faded away into obscurity, a religious fanatic, a girl battling weight issues, and a woman beset by numerous personal misfortunes including a divorce and a failed plastic surgery procedure. All of them have something in common: a belief that somehow beauty will help them overcome the difficulties they face. At the beginning of the intensive training course, a young yoga master, Nani explains to Hyo-jung and the others that only the one person who masters the course most successfully can actually win the secret of ultimate and immortal beauty. There are five unusual rules for them to follow during the one week course:

#1. Never eat without permission.

#2. Never take showers within an hour before or after the class.

#3. Never look at themselves in a mirror.

#4. Never leave the school building.

#5. Never try to call or contact anyone until finishing the course.

As the training goes on, they soon discover that the quest for beauty, has a terrible price.Each of the girls get tempted to break those rules caused by each woman’s secret hidden craving and Hyo-jung starts to sense there is something evil about this institute and the actress who doesn’t get old…”

Neko wonders what exactly there is in the Asian psyche that makes such horror films so prevalent of late. But… no matter. I just plain like watching them as I squirm uncomfortably on the couch. Naturally, you all want to know what this one is exactly all about, so let’s get to it….

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Just in from Korea, your favorite Catgirl Princess has yet another Killer Pig movie!! What?…. Yet another big pig running amok? Yep. Seems the wild outback spaces of Australia aren’t the only place where giant man eating pigs roam free…. From Korea comes still another tale of “Pork  chops gone Wild”…. “Chaw”.

Our synopsis goes just like this here: “Chaw” is a carnivorous horror movie that is set in a peaceful town of Sammae-ri where a human eating boar is discovered there. Ripped body parts are found together with the animal’s footprints by the locals. Former hunter Chun Il Man ( played by Jang Hang Seon) had lost his granddaughter recently and he suspects the boar had eaten her alive.

As the fear is growing in the town, the locals invite famous hunter Baek (played by Yoon Je Moon) to hunt for the boar. Joining him are biologist Su Ryeon (played by Jeong Yu Mi), detective Shin (played by Park Hyeok Kwon) and police officer Kim (played by Eom Tae Woong). Il Man leads the five member boar hunting team when Kim’s mother disappears mysteriously. Can they find the boar and bring Kim’s mother back alive?”

Ooooohhh!! Can the Koreans top the masterpiece of Killer Pig cinema that was “Razorback”? Or will we all find ourselves wishing that we’d never heard of this big ol’ man eating hunk o’ pork? I’m certainly gonna find out… and if you want to know more, well then by all means… “Read On”!!

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Day 5…. and we’re off to Korea for a live action remake of a Japanese anime classic, “Blood, The Last Vampire”…. and another story about Japanese schoolgirls doing what apparently they do best….. kicking serious supernatural butt.

Our quick synopsis goes like this here: “Demons have infested the earth. And only one warrior stands against them between the dark and the light: Saya, a 400-year-old half human-half vampire samurai girl who preys on those who feast on human blood.

Raised by a man named Kato, she works loosely with a shadowy society known as the Council while following her own personal quest to seek out Onigen, the original Mother of all Vampires. Saya is dispatched to an American military base at Yokota, where the vampires have infiltrated the base and are gathering their strength there for an evil purpose. Normally a loner, Saya forms an unlikely friendship with a young girl named Alice, daughter of the base commander, that she rescued from the undead. She finds that Onigen is finally close at hand and so now, after 400 years, Saya’s final hunt is about to begin.”

This one served as part two of my “Schoolgirl Horror Movie Theme Night”…. and I was hoping for a big smashing vampire stomping good time to end my evening… The anime it’s based on was great, if a wee bit short, so was this one going to answer all my expectations or was it gonna fail miserably? Guess if you want to know more you’ll just have to “Read On” and find out!!

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Time this lil’ Catgirl had herself a change of pace from all the straight up horror, fantasy, or scifi she usually indulges in. This time out I’m reviewing the new Korean suspense film “Truck” for you….. but don’t worry, I haven’t strayed tooo far from familiar territory, this one has a serial killer… a poor overwrought father forced to do the unimaginable to save his little daughter… violent gangsters… and a truck full of dead (and maybe not so dead) bodies aimlessly roaming the rainy highways of South Korea. Yep… I think it’ll do.

Our quick synopsis reads: “Cheol-min makes a living by working in the shipping business. He has a daughter suffering from a heart condition, and in need of surgery. To save his daughter, he urgently needs the tremendous amount of 60,000,000 won. To make this money, he gets involved in dangerous illegal gambling and barely saves his life by promising he will take care of body disposal for the gang. On his way to Gangwon-do where he intends to dump the bodies, he encounters a police van that had been in an accident, and ends up giving the police officer a ride. Although this situation is tense, events take a turn for the worse.”

Soooo, interesting enough for you you want to “Read On”? I thought so….. Hehehehe!!

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As Christmas approaches, Neko jingles her bells, decks the halls, and indulges herself by snagging those pricey import discs that in other more frugal moments she might pass up while waiting for the less expensive HK release to come along. “Gosa” is another of those slick horror films done right, the Korean way, and now available in the 2 disc collectors edition straight from Korea. As the only real horror offering out of Korea from this summer could I pass it up? Not on your life!!

The synopsis reads: “About 200 days prior to the college entrance exam, a school manages a cram course for its top 20 students. Evaluated only by their grades, school life is so stressful that some students suffer from serious mental problems. A sudden piano solo of “Fur Elise” wakes up the sleeping students and a screen shows the top student, Hye-yeong, dying in a water tank. A voice asks the students to solve a question, to decide the fate of Hye-yeong. Will she live or will she die? More importantly…. who will be next?”

Yep…. as any number of films have shown, school days in Korea can be Hell…. Literally. So with this trusty scenario in place who among you wouldn’t want to “Read On”?

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This one took a while to finally make it’s way to DVD, but the wait is over, and now Neko can give you her review of “Hansel & Gretel”, the latest Korean Horror/ Fantasy to be based on an old European Fairy Tale….

The synopsis I found for it reads as follows: “A reckless young man, Eun-soo drives to his mother’s and has a car accident. When Eun-soo wakes up, he meets a mysterious girl and is led to her fairytale-like house in the middle of the forest. There, Eun-soo is trapped with the girl and her siblings who never age. Soon he learns all the adults who have visited or stayed in the house have met mysterious yet terrible ends. More shockingly, their cruel deaths are drawn in details and made into a fairytale book by the children. Scared Eun-soo tries to find the way out, but the house is secluded in the forest with no way out. And then, Eun-soo discovers a book which tells a brutal end of none other than himself!”

Ooooh! Scary sounding stuff… and the Koreans usually do really good horror movies that your Favorite Catgirl Princess likes, so let’s find out, shall we?

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“D-Day” is another of the four Korean horror film projects of which “Hidden Floor” was a part, this one was available out of HK instead of Taiwan, and since I liked the first one, Neko picked it up hoping for a nice little thriller for an evenings experience. I mean, schoolgirls, ghosts, creepy teachers, and all that…. how can I go wrong?

The synopsis reads: “Roommates Yoo-jin, Eun-soo, Bo-ram, and Da-young are cramming for a college entrance exam. It`s difficult for them to adapt to the stifling atmosphere of the women`s lodging institute and to get along with each other due to their differing personalities. Yoo-jin has the most difficulty with the stuffy institute life- she begins to have visions of events that took place at the institute in the past like a tragic fire that occurred several years ago. Yoo-jin gradually becomes consumed with fear, and the relationship among the four intimate friends begins to suffer.”

Is it as well made as “Hidden Floor”? Well I guess you’ just have to read some more and find out…..

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Here’s a review for a new Korean one I just watched, “Black House”, a suspense/ horror film about a sensitive insurance agent who becomes ensnared in a terrifying game of cat and mouse with a psychotic killer.

The synopsis I found for it says it all: “Director Shin Tae-ra teams with screenwriter Lee Yeong-jong to adapt author Yusuke Kishi’s 1997 novel concerning an insurance investigator investigating a brutal series of murders. Jeon Jun-oh (Hwang Jeong-min) is a bespectacled former bank employee who now makes his living as an insurance investigator. Summoned to the formidable country estate of potential client Park Chung-bae (Gang Shin-il), Jeon is unnerved by his host’s jittery behavior, and shocked to find the body of Park’s seven year old son hanging lifeless from the ceiling. Everything in this house has a grim aura, including Park’s wife Shin Yi-hwa (Yu Seon) – a grieving cripple whose recent stab at suicide is evidenced by the jagged wounds that mar her wrists. After touring the house, Jeon becomes convinced that Park is in fact a psychopath attempting to carry out an elaborate insurance scam. Not only does Jeon suspect that Park killed his own son, but he believes the murderous patriarch is now intent on doing away with his wife as well. When Jeon’s attempt to convince the authorities of Park’s guilt seem to fall of deaf ears, the sleuthing insurance investigator becomes obsessed with the prospect of uncovering the truth about this strange case. Unfortunately for Jeon and his unsuspecting girlfriend Mi-na (Kim Seo-hyeong), this mystery is much deadlier – and deeper – than anyone ever imagined imagined. ~ by Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide”

Neko doesn’t usually like these sorts of horror offerings, they really scare me far too much to truly enjoy them the way I do more supernatural films, but is this one worth my uneasy squirming and sweaty nervousness? Let’s find out shall we?

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After watching the Thai film “Chocolate” last week, I got inspired to finally get around to this one that had been languishing unwatched in my pile of DVD’s from the last couple of months…… Neko-chan figured it was just the time for a little “Female Empowerment”…. asian style.

So… is director Kang Hyo-jin’s new film up to the level of her previous hit “My Wife is Gangster”, a film Neko absolutely loved? This one also is a story about a strong central female character, but where “My Wife is Gangster” has that main character fully in charge of her life and more than a match for all comers, this one tackles the thornier subject of spousal abuse and domestic violence.

Offering up the audience a story of an horribly abused wife who risks it all to gain her only chance for revenge by facing her violent husband in the boxing ring before an audience of thousands of fight fans in a winner takes all fight to the finish, “Punch Lady” is a hard film to categorize. It starts out as a Drama…. then goes soft and comedic, punctuated by moments of fear and melodrama before reaching it’s conclusion. If you are confused by now… you aren’t alone. Your Favorite Catgirl Princess had her moments trying to get a grip on this one too.

By now you really want to know what it’s all about, so let’s “Read On” shall we?

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More scary stuff from Korea is on tap this time out….“Hidden Floor”, the second installment in the You Il-han and Ahn Byung-ki team-up horror series “One Day Suddenly – 4 Horror Tales” consisting of the films: “February 29″ (2006), “Hidden Floor” (2006), “D-Day” (2006), and “Dark Forest” (2006).

“One Day Suddenly” is a collection of four horror films that were originally put together and produced by Korean horror director Ahn Byung Ki, the director originally responsible for hits such as “Phone”, “Bunshinsaba” and the more recently released “APT”.

Neko-chan hasn’t yet seen the other films originally done for this collection, and my DVD for this one is the Taiwanese release which looks to be pretty much a direct port of the Korean DVD itself. Originally filmed in HD video and transferred to film, the images are crisp and lovely, allowing a much smaller budget than comparable films shot directly to film…..and it really does look professional. Let’s read more…..shall we?

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