First off I’d like to say that this is a Korean horror movie, and when I was watching the movie and read the plot thingie for this movie, it said that it was about a sea monster, holding a young girl hostage.
Also I’d like to say that I don’t have the privilege of knowing the Korean language intimately except maybe “kam sam mida” (I probably misspelled it) which means thank you, if I’m not too mistaken.. so seeing as that’s the range of my Korean knowhow, you see the problem watching a Korean movie… without subtitles…
Oh, and one more thing… HERE BE SPOILERS!
The thing that caught my eye about this movie was how it started. A scientist or something told his co-worker to dump gallons upon gallons of formaldehyde down the drain. The poor co-worker didn’t want to do it, seeing as it would kill just about everything… The (now mad in my eyes) scientist told the guy to do it, because the bottles were covered in dust… so I’m assuming they never used them anyway… This first bit was in English, btw, so I understood that, but my memory is somewhat gapy at this point… anyways… the co-worker goes ahead and dumps the liquid into the sink, and the fumes and smoke rising from it could, I believe, strip a room of paint and wallpaper in 3 seconds flat…
Cut to two fishermen standing in a river, and I’m now assuming this is the river where the stuff was dumped, and one of them sees something, grasps his cup to catch the thing, and he does (YAY). They both stand there ogling it, and one stupidly puts his finger into the cup and screams bloody murder when the thing nips him. And he then drops the cup, and the thing makes its escape.
Cut to… a guy in a kiosk, slumped over the candy DEAD!!!! Or asleep… one cannot tell, seeing as he doesn’t move. A young child sneaks up to the counter, hand hovering over the goodies, then runs away when an older guy comes along and picks out a few beers from the fridge. The dead guy wakes up, looks around and puts his head back down.
Then something happens to stoke the fire under his ass, cause he suddenly gets his ass in gear, running around and falling down. A teenaged girl comes into frame, and the guy is very pleased to see her. Seeing as I have no idea what they are talking about, I’m assuming this guy is brother/uncle/father to this girl and she is… well, you get the idea… The old guy will be called gramps, cause he’s the oldest there…
She jumps into the trailer/kiosk to watch TV with gramps, to watch archery contest where apparently her mother/sister/aunt is competing. While all this is happening, the sleepy guy is running around making grilled octopus (minus one tentacle, which sleepy guy stole) for the masses outside in the park. He then proceeds to serve the masses beer and grilled octopus. But hark, the masses aren’t hungry… they are watching something odd… Turn camera to show what they are watching. A thing, hanging from a bridge. The thing uncurls and splashes into the water and swims gingerly over to the masses. The masses start to chatter, and sleepy guy throws a can of beer into the water. The thing snaps it up like it was a chameleon. This makes the masses go wild with excitement, and they start throwing loads of stuff into the water. Apparently this displeases the creature, and it jumps out of the water and starts attacking the masses. The only thing I can say is that it kind of looks like a coelacanth, with massive upper arm muscles and no hind limbs. Oh, and a four-five cleft mouth.
The girl inside the trailer with gramps is very disappointed when sister/aunt/mother doesn’t win the contest, and she walks out, unaware of the turmoil around her. Then suddenly, out of the blue, sleepy guy grabs her by the arm and they run like hell… (I have to say that loads have happened in the meantime, but I can’t be bothered to review ALL of it) but unfortunately sleepy guy stumbles and looses the grip on girl. He grabs the nearest hand he can find, without looking, of course, and starts running again. From the camera angle you can already tell that he grabbed the wrong person, and as the camera angle changes, a girl, looking nothing like THE girl, comes into view. Someone picks her up and gives sleepy guy the look of “Oh, you kidnapping bastard! Keep your hands of her!” and as the sleepy guy realizes his mistake, he turns, and watches as the big fishie runs up behind her, grabs her by its tail and jump into the water. In horror the sleepy guy watches as the shadow of the fish swims across the river and walks ashore on the other side, harks up a previous human meal and noms the girl.
Thinking her dead, they all gather at a makeshift “Place where you can find a picture of all the people who died”. Sleepy guy is sobbing uncontrollably, gramps is most miserable, and suddenly there is a new guy there. I’m assuming he’s the girls other uncle or something, and out of the blue sister/mother/aunt archery contester enters, and they all make a terrible scene in front of the picture of THE girl. Then, the authorities, in their kindness, kick everybody out… well, except the people who have been in contact with the water and/or the fish. They are taken to someplace. I really don’t know what it is and why they are there. I’m assuming the Korean authorities don’t like big fish and will keep everyone who has seen large fish in hospital conditions forever and ever. (I must add that on the bus ride to the hospital place, they watched an infomercial about REALLY bad acne attacks… go figure… (I’m guessing too much fish isn’t good for you)). While sleepy guy is munching on canned… something… his cell phone rings, and lo and behold, I think, it’s THE girl. SHE’S NOT DEAD! And this makes them, of course, run away.
Cut to The girl in a pit, all alone, with dead bodies all around. In the distance she hears the fish come home from a hard day at work and she hides in a hole in the wall.
(Again, my memory escapes me).
Cut to… the family of The girl trying to find a way to find the girl and so on… oh, and try to stay one step ahead of the authorities… They walk into a sewer system, calling, I think , for the girl. They sure as heck don’t know how to use a flashlight, because they were turning the flashlight back and forth like mad. I couldn’t see anything, and it’s not really amazing that they didn’t find anything either. They gathered at a large room, and thought they saw something, but it turned out to be a young boy and a younger boy, which they didn’t see. We follow the two young kids out of the sewers and up in the banks. A car drives past and they hide. When they come out of hiding the fish comes at them and nomnomnom…
They are taking back to the pit where the girl is being held and it turns out that the younger of the two survived. The girls takes it upon herself to care for him and keep him from harm, which in its self is kinda hard when there’s a large fish ready to eat you at any point.
The family take refuge in the old trailer, make dinner and sleep a little. That is, till sleepy guy notices large fishie sitting outside, face upturned, drinking rainwater. Gramps takes aim with a gun, which I don’t remember where comes from, and shots the darn thing. Unfortunately this doesn’t kill the beast, only makes it angry, and it attacks the trailer, turning it on its side with the whole family inside. They all burst out of the trailer, guns blazing, and the thing runs off. They head down to the riverside to catch it before it vanishes into the murky depths. And they do. The thing comes running at gramps, who is telling the others to get the heck out of there (I’m assuming. He could have told them to get some bait, for all I know. Or, which would be more understandable, a sushi chef). Seeing as gramps doesn’t have any more bullets in his gun, sleepy guy tell him he has one left (I think… ) and hands him his gun. He turns to the beast, aims and shots. *click* (and we see sleepy guy count on his fingers) they both realize gramps is f*cked. The fish munches gramps, then grab him with its tail and bash him to the ground, just for the hell of it. Needless to say, gramps is dead… Sister/aunt/mother and other guy runs away, while sleepy guy can’t make himself leave gramps… much like Sam won’t/can’t leave Frodo…
So… Sleepy guy is taken away to a hospital thingie again. And this is the only part where I understood what was going on… An American comes into the room, with an interpreter. He says that “we think your daughter is alive” (OOOooh… ) “If you knew why didn’t tell anyone?” and the sleepy guy says “No one never listens to me” and this is when my boyfriend came into the room and started talking to me, so I missed SO much. But I did hear something about sleepy guy having a virus, and that the virus had reached his brain and that they had to drill his head… ask me not why… I’m guessing to find a cure. Next thing we see if sleepy guy screaming bloody murder while people are setting drill points on his forehead and stuff. Thankfully we don’t see the drilling, but after this we see him slumped in a chair, band aid on forehead, looking kinda beat. And a nurse is taking some blood from him. Why, I don’t know. I would think they got enough blood from him while they were drilling in his brain. She nudges him to make him come to, but he won’t budge. Then HAHA! he wakes up, grabs the syringe and takes the nurse hostage. He threatens the others to either stand still and lie down or get out of the way and stand still, cause they were all as confused as I were… They didn’t seem to know which way to turn. But they get out of the hospital trailer into a parking lot with a barbeque. He gets away. Sister/aunt/mother has been hiding in a bridge hole and comes out, determined to find the girl. The other guy was almost handed over to the authorities, I think, when his office co-workers turned on him. He managed to escape too, with the plans over the sewer system. Well, he almost gets caught on the streets when police cars drive into frame, but he jumps over a fence and falls far but he manages to text message sister/aunt/mother to let her know where the find the girl before he passes out.
The girl and the boy are having a hard time in the pit. There is no way to get out, but girl is very resourceful, taking a baton from one of the dead people and tie clothes to it. She throws it up on a grid which is over the pit and it holds (yay). Unfortunately, it’s too short. This is when the beast comes back, and the kids run into the hole. She covers his eyes while the beast vomits tons and tons of bones of all the people he has eaten, and… a can of beer (it still had its fizz). A little later the beast is sleeping, and the kids dare to venture out of the hole. The girl picks up the beer can and throws it at the beast. It doesn’t move, so she’s assuming it’s fast asleep. She then runs up its back and grabs the clothes and start to climb. Halfway up we hear growling, and we see her hand slip of the make shift rope, but she doesn’t fall. We then get a wide view of the beast holding the girl in its tail. It puts her down and continues its slumber, or so we are lead to believe. The girl runs over to the boy and they try to make it into the hole but we see massive jaws clamp around them, and then darkness.
Father has made his way to the pit, crawls down into it, sees the girl’s school jacket, and then crawls back out.
Other guy wakes up on the streets and starts talking to a homeless guy not far from him, telling him, I think, that he needs his empty beer bottles to save the environment, but the homeless guy doesn’t like this and smashed an empty bottle over the head of the guy. But the soon make peace with each other; take a taxi to the river, to the horror of the taxi driver, seeing as they are making Molotov cocktails in the backseat.
Sister/aunt/mother has made her way to the sewer, seen the beast, tried to hit it with an arrow, got knocked off her feet into a ditch… she wakes up to the screams of sleepy guy and see the beast run out of the sewer system.
On the other side of the river the authorities have made a vaccine to a virus… of course there are people protesting this, seeing as the distribution of said vaccine is dumping it on people from a huge yellow thing.
Needless to say the party is short lived when the creature runs ashore, killing people… again…
The vaccine is dumped on the beast, and its back fin drops off… and it’s a flapping fish.
So many things are going on; it’s hard to put it all in the right order… But the homeless guy manages to climb above the creature and starts dumping the gasoline on the creature. It thinks it is rain and guzzles it down. The other guy, who has been Molotoving the hell out of the creature just seconds before, has one cocktail left. When he sees the beast drinking the gasoline, he smiles evilly (although, we don’t get to see it, but that’s what I would have done) and runs up to the creature, ready to throw the last bottle. Unfortunately, his fingers slip and the last bottle smashes to the ground behind him. Fortunately, Aunt/mother/sister has one arrow left, picks up a flaming marshmallow (that’s what it looks like, anyway) and fires it into the mouth of the beast. What they didn’t count on was that the fish doesn’t like being on fire and it soon runs around like its hair was on fire. Sleepy guy grabs a signpost, smashes the concrete base and flicks away the sign bit, and stand ready to impale the beast. And he does. Oh, I have forgotten to tell you about the part where the beast passes out and sleepy guy pulls the girl out of the beast’s mouth. She’s holding the boy. This happens before the beast guzzles gasoline.
After the beast is dead they are holding the girl, mourning her. But then sleepy guy walks over to the boy and nudges him. HE’S ALIVE!
After this they live in the old trailer, selling stuff and eating when they want to, and keeping an eye out for any creatures that don’t belong on this earth.
The End
