The Red Shoes

Have you ever seen a pair of shoes so enchanting that you HAD to have them? I bet you have, but these shoes are literally to die for. The Red Shoes is a 2005 Korean horror film written and directed by Kim-Yong-gyun. He was inspired by the fairytale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen.

Set in Seoul, South Korea, the film follows Sun Jae, a woman who has fine taste in shoes, as she struggles to settle into a new life with her daughter after she finds that her husband has been unfaithful. One day, while going home, Sun Jae finds a pair of red shoes on a subway train platform and she decides to take them with her. Unfortunately these shoes are cursed and they cause everyone the strong urge to wear them. With this strong desire come dire consequences, with lives hanging in the balance Sun Jae must find the key to unlocking the mystery behind the bloody shoes.

I applaud this film for being inspired by a children’s fairytale. Not every fairytale is rosy and has a happy ending. On the other hand the story was very hard to follow. There was a lack of transition between scenes. Sometimes I was scratching my head and asking what happened, I couldn’t tell what was a flashback, a dream or the actual story taking place. There was a lack of information also; I kept getting lost at who was which character. That should never happen in a film. There was an indistinct twist at the end that filled some of the connection issues, but it wasn’t enough.

We are also plagued with clichés that have been seen the world over. Girls shrouded in their hair, crazy girl contortions, and the fact that the shoes are cursed is tired and has been seen before (cursed object movies exhorting supernatural influence over the characters). It’s not too bothersome if you go into the movie with an open mind. Even though I had seen some of these common things before, I was still intrigued because of the story.

Although the story is cloudy the cinematography was excellent. There was a great use of light and simple but effective scary ideas such as a flurry of snowflakes that turn pink and then blood red. There’s an interior designer introduced in the film and I felt that his artistry represented the art that we were seeing. There were out of focus and grainy shots, great use of dark greens and blinking fluorescent bulbs and there was clarity around the red shoes even though they were representing this mysterious, forlorn object. The scenes representing the past were also shrouded in a sepia tone but like I said before there is no transition between these scenes.

The movie is subtitled, but don’t let that be a deal breaker. I find that dubbed movies lose the intentional charm and effectiveness that the original movie had; sometimes American voices fall flat and wind up driving the audience away from the movie.

The Red Shoes was an interesting story that just needs some clarification and further explanation. It’s frustrating at times but if you want to dive deeper into Asian horror and the figure out the characters psychology this is an interesting excerpt in the genre. I stress that the pacing is very frustrating and confusing at times. If you turn it off, don’t feel too bad.

3 stars out of 5.