RESURRECTION OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL

Country: South Korean
Release Year: 2002
Genre: Science Fiction
Language: Korean
Runtime: 126 minutes

[Cast]
Eun-Kyeong Lim
Hyun-Sung Kim
Jin-Pyo Kim
Sing Jin

[Director]
Sun-Woo Jang



About a year ago I was at the monthly SCI FI convention in L.A. and I happened to glance at a single solitary DVD on the vendors' shelf. So I asked what It was, and the vendor showed me the fancy packaging of a cute Korean girl on the cover.

It appeared to be a scifi flick, so I bought it even though it didn't have any *English subtitles* because after watching the trailer, I was hooked. That was a year ago, and finally after obtaining a subtitled version of the flick, I finally watched it last night. And here it is...my own personal review. Which is a long time coming.

With much anticipation I quickly popped the disc into the DVD player. The movie opens explaining a revamped futuristic version of the fairy tale story of the little match stick girl, who wanders the street aimlessly selling match sticks, however no one buys any from her and so after awhile she freezes to death and while thinking happy thoughts about her grandmother she dies.

Exciting right? Wait there's more!

In an alternate South Korean space and time, someone creates a computer game. The game is based on the fairy tale and the objective is to locate the little match girl, and prevent her from selling any match sticks [the match sticks are replaced with disposable lighters instead]. And keep her alive long enough so that she freezes to death and dies while thinking of her grandmother but, in order to win this game, instead of her grandmother, she'll have to be thinking of the player.

Sounds easy enough right?

...well with so many players in the game after the little match girl, it'll be next to impossible to keep her long enough to die, much less to have her thinking of you while she dies. And that's exactly what our hero needs to accomplish. The movie had a lot of potential. An attractive young cast, a decent plot, and a very high budget.

Sadly however, someone still dropped the ball!

I just don't get it!

This movie had a great character, the little match girl who sells lighters seeing that no ones paying attention to her she gets mad, finds a gun, and kills anyone who refuses to buy from her. But that's all we get, no character development of any kind. Except when a flashback clip showing someone killing the love of her life. To which had nothing to do with the plot.

And there is no explanation how she got into the game. She's just a one dimensional character. Even the hero is one dimensional. He frequents an arcade which is run by a cute girl. Who very much resembles the little match girl whom he follows and suddenly gets sucked into the game.

Huh?

Again no explanation!

Throughout the movie you'll meet a few one dimensional characters, be treated to familiar but creative action scenes. And of course, special effects, and explosions.Which is to me probably the only reason to watch this flick.There's several scenes that are memorable.

I love the scene when the little match girl wanders the subway with a basket of lighters in one hand, and a semi automatic in the other, and when she is refused by several of the bystanders after trying to sell them a lighter, she sprays all of them full of lead with the submachine gun...

Very cool!!!!...

...but...why couldn't the rest of the movie be like this?

The very problem of ROTLMG is that, it focuses too much on the game plot. And not enough on character development. If the movie showed more stylized violence like the one mentioned above...why this would probably be one of the coolest movies ever made.

Except I don't think the director, the writer, or whoever wrote the script knew what he or she was writing about. They tried to include a lot of different plots, and subplots that just made the whole movie convoluted. To sum it all up, the whole movie was a complete and utter mess!!!

So in conclusion, the things that I liked in this movie are the eye candies which is the main character which is the little match girl, and the special effects. That's about it! No wonder this movie was dubbed "the most expensive South Korean movie flop ever made!" ...understandably so.

The DVD from CJ entertainment is pretty much flawless. Everything from the 16x9 anamorphic print, to the dts/5.1 dolby digital surround. Not to mention the extras you'll never understand, unless of course you can speak Korean. The only gripe I have with the DVD is the absence of English Subtitles.

Which makes me think that, the filmmakers are in a way discouraging English speakers to not see this high budget disappointment. Of course that is my own personal assumption. Still for what its worth, I still think that another South Korean high budget disaster "YESTERDAY" still is to this day my vote as the King of Korean Box-Office flops.

So yes, I did enjoy "RESSURRECTION OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL" more, way more than "YESTERDAY!" that's not saying much because anything is better than "YESTERDAY"

The English Subtitled" DVD version. Which I got from a used DVD retailer, of all places. It doesn't take much to know that it is a bootleg version. And while it is a bootleg version.

The English subtitles on it had a few misspelled words, but nonetheless helped me understand what's being said. A very passable action flick, and by the word 'passable' I meant that unless you are a huge Korean Action aficionado you, and everyone should avoid watching this flick like the plague.