Customer Reviews

Unborn But Forgotten

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Sometimes it really does seem like there are no original ideas. "Unborn But Forgotten" is prime proof of that, a movie so crammed with cliches and ripoffs that it seems like a spoof.

Ever since the arrival of hit Japanese film "Ringu" and its solid remakes and sequels, there have been some truly lame ripoffs -- "Phone," for one, and the American cluck-clucker "Feardotcom." But "Unborn But Forgotten" takes that lameness and runs off into the distance with it.

Su-Jin (Eun-joo Lee) is a determined young journalist, with a peculiar mystery to investigate: women have been dying of bizarre physiological causes, apparently linked to ultra-fast pregnancies, even though none of them were pregnant before. The only link is a website called The White Room, which will kill you after fifteen days.

Of course, Su-Jin (who is already pregnant by her moody boyfriend) goes to the site. And having doomed herself, she begins searching for the origins of this cursed site. She finds out that it is due to a vengeful ghost (not another one!) who lost her child, and is apparently using the site to produce ghost babies.

Sound familiar? Just insert the word "tape" instead of "website," and "seven" instead of "fifteen," and you've got "Ringu."

It may seem like a new twist to have the pregnancy angle, but to anyone who has seen Hideo Nakata's "Rasen" -- the sequel to "Ringu" -- the pregnancy angle will seem all too familiar. Well, at least they found new aspects of the Ring Curse to rip off, rather than mere death.

Using a similar storyline isn't necessarily a death knell, but the slipshod script and lackluster acting seal the movie's fate. Director Chang-jae Lim is either inept or discouraged by the turkiness of this film, and so doesn't bother anything other than "boo!" scares. Subtle spookery can turn even a clunker into something interesting, but Lim seems too bored to manage it.

Screenwriter Hyeon-geun Han is definitely inept, leaving all the wrong plot threads dangling. How does a ghost start a site? WHY a site? Why is she mad? What's the point of what she's doing? And why the heck is the human murderer revealed so early, when he could have provided plenty of suspense? Don't expect any of it to make sense.

There are a few subplots that are interesting to us -- for example, the boyfriend finding that the pregnant Su-Jin might cripple his career, and how he responds to it. But such character-building is swept to the wayside. Instead, we get the occasional creepy moment (Su-Jin watching herself die), smothered in dull spookiness and incredibly obvious plotting.

With some decent acting but a terrible and derivative storyline, "Unborn But Forgotten" deserves to be forgotten.

Korea always surprises me with their films. This one is no different. More of a thriller or mystery than a horror film, Unborn But Forgotten is a predictable tale that although had gained little respect is worth a look for those in love with Korean film. It stands on it's own however the dialoge and the pace could have been up tempo a bit more.

The story is about a website that when people visit, strangely they die shortly later. Although this is similar to the ring the plot thickens because it's not random. There is a purpose to the killings that exists in the clues of the relationship and artwork surrounding the supersitious happening.

The film is worth viewing and is definately worth the used price here on amazon. If you love Korean film and want to add this to your collection I would suggest it. For Fans of "The Eye 2" or anyone who finds it interesting to see parenthood and the supernatural combined, I would say this is a must. Thriller/mystery is not much my thing but in the this vein it was very good. Not for those looking for horror.

Quality was outstanding as Tartan always provides.

Well the other reviewers covered everything but 1 point,...the box is marked Anamorphic Widescreen,....it isn't. It is the only Tartan Asia Extreme that is '4/3 letterboxed' that I have run across. I own many. Most are excellent. This one isn't,.. AND won't work on you widescreen TV. They have the subtitles in the black above and below the picture so you can't zoom the picture to fill the screen. You will have to watch a little picture centered on your big widescreen TV. I called Tartan to report the error and the customer service guy said,.." Well,..what do you want me to do about it. I just work here and everyone else is at lunch."

Unborn but Forgotten (Chang-jae Lim, 2002)

I am an unabashed fangeek when it comes to Asian horror films. The Far East have been putting paid to cocky Americans in the horror film arena for almost a quarter-century now; even during the last golden age of American horror, the Japanese were kicking our tails. (Those who think that "torture porn" is a "new trend" might want to go back and revisit the first two Guinea Pig films directed by Hideshi Hino or T. F. Mous' Men Behind the Sun, all of which are over two decades old.) Now, when the American horror industry is consumed with bland remakes and adaptations of video games, it seems we've pretty much ceded the field to such Eastern auteurs as Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the Pang Brothers, Hideo Nakata, etc. etc. ad nauseam. Because we see so many excellent horror films from Asia, I'm always a bit surprised when I see one that's mediocre. (I've seen very few that are outright bad.) Unborn but Forgotten is one of those movies that helps me remember that not every horror flick to come from Region 3 is great-- or, for that matter, even good.

The plot will likely sound very familiar to anyone who's seen three or four horror movies in the past decade: women who visit a certain website die fifteen days later. Plucky Young Journalist(TM) visits site for research, is cursed, and must discover how to unlock the curse before she dies.

Yes, it's Ring all over again, but without any of that movie's atmosphere, presence, excellent acting, or creepy cinematography. This was Lim's first film; in the ensuing five years, he has not made a second. That alone should tell you something. I'm giving it two stars because, while it's not good, it's not bad, either; it's just kind of there. A forgettable way to kill two hours. **

Okay I would like to let the reviewer below me know (THE FIDDLER) that I think it only his DVD that had that problem because my movie is in 1:85 anomorphic Widescreen and it also worked in my Widescreen TV just fine. And yes my DVD is from Tartan and I have had it for almost a year. But as for the movie it really let me down because as I saw this I felt like I was watching fear dot com again That movie sucked also by the way. but the victims were only women. This movie only gets 3 stars from me out of respect for Lee Eun-JOO the lead actress of the film. I love the movies she has done but I recently found out that she died in 2005 (Suicide). So if you think that this film stinks I am with you but this is my way of paying respect to a beautiful women whose talent was wasted a year ago.

A very polished, well-made and subtly spooky movie, "Unborn But Forgotten" is on the slow side (sometimes Too slow, admittedly), and highly demanding of close attention to really 'get', even by Asian standards, where atmosphere and complex plot structures are very common. But it rewards with a psychologically and emotionally engaging tale, one that really affects and chills. The 'killer website' idea had become well established even before this was made in 2003, but in Unborn But Forgotten it's visitors to the website of an abortion clinic who are meeting their end within fifteen days of their log-on to the site. In a scenario similar to The Ring/Ringu, the movie's protagonist comes upon the curse by accident, while investigating deaths that she had thought were unrelated, and has to sift through a web of secrets and otherworldiness to solve the puzzle of the curse before she becomes another victim.

Themes of regret, redemption, compassion and loneliness are woven throughout, and a figure central to the movie, who emerges in the latter sections, is one of the most tragic entities to ever appear in film. Unusually bold in its handling of the final third of its going, Unborn But Forgotten doesn't pull itself back just to avoid being politically incorrect.

**WARNING: POSSIBLE SEMI-SPOILERS AHEAD**


There's no question that some viewers will be offended at the angle from which this looks at the whole idea of abortion. While it avoids depicting either the staff or the clients of the clinic as one-dimensional or deliberately cruel, the movie, well, I might as well just say it, sympathizes with the aborted. Which of course is quite taboo nowadays. And while the title alone will probably have given most a good idea of where it's leading up to on its path of secrets, it's not a straight-forward, cut-and-dried, 'revenge' movie. It's quite emotional, and the motivations behind some of the characters are genuinely surprising. Dark, tragic on multiple levels, and yet with glimmers of something else. The finale is unique and memorable, and the movie as a whole, even with the 'killer website' angle, can be said to be quite unlike anything else out there. Recommended.

I had no idea that this film was anti-abortion rights. I think it must have been funded by anti-abortion groups from the US who are busy trying to overturn Roe v. Wade and bring back back-room abortions thereby killing more women and babies in the process. The only thing scary was the message.

Unborn But Forgotten had the potential to be a much better horror thriller. There are a lot of really good elements, including a very good cast, excellent camera work, a nice score and amazing sets. But all of those things fade away under the weight of a silly story and a very cheesy ending. In fact, I was almost ready to declare the movie had redeemed its poor start in the second half, till I got to the end.

The premise of this movie was similar to Pulse, Fear Dot Com and Ringu, or it's US remake The Ring. The story is based on a website that causes women to get pregnant and die within 15 days. The script tries to explain the source of this evil website, but the weak premise leaves them fighting an up-hill battle. They also try to hide a false sense of depth in the movie, but it is less than convincing given the silly treatment.

The cinematography and the score seem top notch. This is a very clean and polished looking movie. The actors also seem to have been universally well cast. Top to bottom, all of them seem to be very good in their roles. Unfortunately, the lines they are given to support this premise of an *evil* website makes it even worse when they deliver them with a straight face.

Now I am totally capable of suspending my disbelief for a movie. After all, if they would have said all these women were killed by aliens, I wouldn't have taken points away for that. Admittedly, that's a lot harder to believe than an evil website. Yet it's not the premise alone that's hard to swallow. It's also the way it's delivered. Without giving too many plot points away here, this story just isn't very frightening or convincing.

The movie's ending is very silly, and probably the most disappointing thing about it. It's also most likely the reason for the title of the US release, considering the original title is supposedly translated into "White Room," which is the description of the murderous website. Let's just say the ending involves a child, which makes me wonder if having a baby truly is a harrowing experience for many adults.

Conclusion

If you are just looking for a few hours of mindless entertainment and you don't nitpick at details, you might be able to enjoy this. As for me, I am left wondering what a much better movie this might have been if they had scrapped the silly premise and the cheesy ending.

Avoid.

Let me start this review by clarifying the title to this film. The original Korean title is Hayanbang which roughly translates as "White Room." When the film was subtitled it become Unborn But Unforgotten. Someone at Tartan designed the artwork with the confusing title Unborn But Forgotten which makes no sense at all.

The film is basically a Korean remake of Ringu but replaces the phone call with a website that kills its female viewers 15 days after clicking on the site. The conceit is that all of the victims die appearing that they had just given birth although friends say that the women were not pregnant. Into this mix comes a television reporter named Han Su-jin (Eun-ju Lee) who has just learned that she is pregnant by her news anchor boyfriend. She views the site and has 15 days to figure out what is causing the deaths and save her own life. Aiding her in her investigation is a policeman Lee Seok (Jun-ho Jeong) who specializes in cyber crimes.

All in all this is a decent film for those not too familiar with the genre. For viewers who have some knowledge it all seems to be a been there done that experience. The problem is that Ringu did the same thing much better.

The Tartan disc offers the film with its original Korean soundtrack available in Dolby 2.0, 5.1, and DTS. The picture is as sharp as can be expected for films of this type. There is an on the set featurette, some cast interviews, a photo gallery and trailers for this feature and for other Tartan releases. You would do better to rent than to buy this one.

This was a surprisingly great movie! I didn't know what to expect and I am glad that I bought it!!