Stoker

Coming-of-age-horror-romance...
Stoker is the type of film you don't see very often. It has a small cast with huge star power, a brilliant script, expertly crafted design in both set and costume, and a truly fascinating story. The film is told less through dialogue and more through action, facial expression, and the imagery of a scene. Stoker doesn't spoon-feed its audience. It expects them to be attentive and alert, ready to come to their own conclusions.

As a horror film it is strangely elegant. As a romance film it is quite disturbing. As a coming-of-age film, it is simply chilling!

Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode, and Mia Wasikowska all provide some wonderful acting here. Kidman's talent is to be expected, but Goode and Wasikowska are especially impressive. Matthew Goode is nearly unrecognizable in his emotions on display here and Mia Wasikowska completely owns the role. Its hard to take your eyes off these characters.

The elegance of the set and costume design is surprising, giving...

Masterful, Dark Poetry
"Stoker" is a beautiful, twisted, hypnotic trance - it's meant for an audience not overly concrete in it's thinking but who have an open imagination and are able to take the plunge into the darkly poetic vision of it's director. The three principle actors are superb but Mia Wasikowska really gives the film a beating heart, as she emerges from her innocense into her latent self. This movie is filled with images that are as disturbing as they are lyrical and open to endless interpretation. I've seen the movie three times in theaters and find that my impressions change with each viewing and that it has really haunted my imagination. "Stoker" is one of those unique and mysterious masterpieces that I'm sure I will be returning to frequently over the years - there's much to drink in, as the well runs deep,

A masterpiece
* Also published on Imdb *

Another masterpiece by Park, who playfully, coldly and ruthlessly explores the darkness of the human psyche.

The movie is not only as good as the trailer, but hugely better and even more mysterious and captivating. It simply blows your mind away. Fortunately, I ignored the negative Anglophobe reviews and watched it. It's the most complete artistic work by Chan-wook Park in his career so far, an ingenious masterpiece, with the only minor complaint being the lack of the explicit violence he depicts in his Korean movies; this is not his fault though, but the request of the American companies involved, and still he manages to make us shiver with the cruelty of the violent scenes depicted and insinuated.

To fully appreciate this movie, you must have watched Old Boy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, and in general to be a fan of Korean and Japanese cinema. The script is excellent, violent, unpredicted, the plot mysterious and...

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