Manhole (2014)

Director: Jae-Young Shin

Starring: Kyung-ho Jung, Yu-mi Jung, Sae-ron Kim

A young girl is kidnapped by a serial killer. The serial killer uses manholes to kidnap and kill his victims. The young girl’s older sister tries to save her before it’s too late.

The story of a madman who abducts women and taking them to his underground lair via manholes. This was really creepy at times, with some nice effects. The film had the potential to be just as disturbing as ‘I saw the Devil’ or ‘The Chaser’, but I didn’t find the antagonist all that convincing and found he wasn’t given enough to do. In fact, he even seemed passive at times when I expected him not to. There’s also too many instances where victims hesitated for no reason while having an opportunity to kill or outwit their assailant.

SPOILER: At the end, protagonist Yeon-seo was badly injured and was lying flat on the ground behind antagonist Soo-cheol, but just as Soo-cheol wanted to hit Yeon-seo’s young sister, Soo-yeong, with a crowbar, Yeon-seo suddenly jumped up in front of Soo-cheol and ultimately suffers a blow to the head with the crowbar. Uhm, how did she manage to get up AND move in front of Soo-cheol within a matter of a second? This was just not believable and for effect only.

In general this was a very good film, but believe it could have been greatly improved with stronger acting and faster pacing, and without the police being such idiots.

In Korean.