Red Shoes

Another disc, another director’s commentary – this time making excuses for all the elements in the film we’ve seen in countless other Japanese and Korean horror movies. It’s become like a bizarre game of Where’s Wally – keeping an eye out for the inevitable appearance of the young girl in white gown, with her long black hair over her face. Thanks, Ring, for spawning that cliché. Here she’s in an elevator and if you don’t like her “too bad”, says Yong-gyun Kim. Apparently its’ new because it’s such an enclosed space and she’s there as an ominous presence. Hhhhmmmm.

Creepy girl aside, the movie is good with moments of real originality and the in-depth commentary – which also features cinematographer Tae-Kyung Kim and star Hye-su Kim – explains many of the ideas you may have missed on first watching. Many concepts are also a bit lost in the edit so are better developed here. You get more sense of what Yong-gyun Kim was trying to portray. There’s a nice link between our protagonist and the woman who originally cursed the shoes which I missed and learning this little snippet gave the movie a new depth.

There’s also some nice behind the scenes anecdotes and the director lavishes praise on his cast without it ever getting too luvvy dahling.

The Making Of, thankfully, isn’t just a repeat of the commentary. The cast and director discuss the shoot, bringing the characters to life and the complexities of shooting horror. There’s a nice focus on child star Yeon-ah Park, who plays Tae-soo. She’s a very natural, promising actress and deserves the praise heaped on her.

Aside from the trailer, the final offering is a feature on the visual effects. This is for uber-geeks only, who will doubtless get turned on by 15 minutes of mind-boggling technical jargon about film ratios, lighting and colour contrast. The discussions about how they manipulated the contrast to create the ominous gloomy sets and enhance the colour of the shoes – as desirable as Gollum’s precious – but it’s a bit of a struggle to maintain interest.

Sadly, the main question I had was never answered in the extras. Why the hell is this called The Red Shoes when the friggin’ stilettos are fuschia pink?