White: The Curse of the Melody Movie Review

South Korea has done it again and this time they have come up with a creepy plot that involves a cursed song, its music video and an Asian Barbie.

Jokes aside. Kim Gok and Kim Sun have done a fantastic job with this film and I’m not going to lie but White gave me a few nightmares after watching this late one night. The story follows an up-and-coming K-Pop group, Pink Dolls, consisting of four members: Je Ni, Ah Rang, Shin Ji and the eldest, Eun Ju. Despite being in a group, some of them don’t get along well and their stardom isn’t reaching the height they thought they should. Following a pitiful performance at a live show, the group manager informs the members that they would be moving to another but better dormitory for them to live and practice in. The film moves on until the protagonist stumbles upon a VHS tape labeled White which turns out to be an unreleased music video. The story then moves on as the group refurbish the music, learn the song and its choreography; until unusual events start to occur suddenly endangering the lives of any who sing the song and take the lead part.

I don’t know why but it seems Asians have a knack for manifesting a simple object or of the sort into something so dark and frightening and c’mon, who would have thought of making a film about a killer song?

On a mediocre side, White is just like every other Asian horror film: you get the plot about a young girl (rarely a boy) who was either abused/ridiculed until an accident or pursued intent ends up killing the girl. The girl’s soul, mangled in anger and vengeance, comes back as a dark spirit to hack-n-slash those who wronged her in the past or sometimes, bring justice (and a few blood splats) to those who do a certain bad deed. Your classic Asian horror recipe just right there.

What made White amazing was the intensity and drive it gives the viewers as the plot progresses, emanating the effect of feeling like you’re the one solving the mystery of the song. The movie didn’t have to rely on jump scares (but it had enough to make you leap) due to the amazing back story, eerie sound effects and the unvarying progress from sanity to utter lunacy. Sheer envy and obsession is what makes this movie belt high and with that comes the sad consequence of death and suffering. It doesn’t get any deeper than that. Apart from the atmosphere of the film, I have to give credit to the raunchy and selfish personalities of each of the characters. The cast’s portrayal of young, bug-eyed stars trying to make it big in the show business and snarling at their fellow members literally makes you feel either annoyed or sorry for them. Kudos to the writers because it showed that the film was indirectly educating the audience of what are a few of the extreme conditions and factors most rising stars have to face and do for the result of impermanent fame and wealth.

Overall, I thought White was really good and to me, it’s few of the rare horror films that could be poetically analyzed and interpreted in many ways. I’d give this K-Horror a 4-star rating so it’s a definite recommendation for you guys. Cheers!