Hansel and Gretel

Last night I watched the film Hansel and Gretel, a 2007 horror film from South Korea directed by Yim Pil-Sung. Following a car crash a young salesman Eun-soo (played by Cheon Jeon-yeoung) finds himself lost in a deep dark forest when he encounters a young girl (Shim Eun-kyung) who tkes him to her house in the middle of the forest where she lives with her older brother and younger sister and their parents. The house is like a child's paradise full of cakes, sweets, toys, picture books and Christmas decorations, and the family are seemingly completely perfect. However Eun-soo soon discovers that there are dark supernatural forces at work in the house and the children have their own ways of exacting on anyone who displeases them. The film is very stylish and very strange, belonging very much to the "fairy-tale for adults" genre. It's kind of like a cross between Pan's Labyrinth and that Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life" about the psychic boy who can read minds and turn people into monsters or make them disappear.

It was another quiet day at work and fairly dull, as usual. I've been reading a biography of The Beatles, which is really interesting. It's hard to think of any bands of recent times that have had such a huge level of adoration and fame.