Face (DVD)

What saves Face? Good acting, an interesting set-up, and some spooky ghostly sequences. Unfortunately, that’s also what loses Face — the acting is good, but the characters aren’t believable; the set-up is interesting, but it doesn’t pay off; the ghosts are scary, but they ultimately serve no purpose.

But I digress. Face starts off with a gruesome murder scene, then shows us the purpose of the serial killer’s savagery: to harvest organs that will help more deserving people live. When the police start finding nothing but bones and skulls, they call in a reluctant expert in the forensic science of facial reconstruction, Lee Hyun-min (Shin Hyun-jun). Hyun-min has problems of his own — problems at work, problems with his potentially fatally diseased young daughter — but he cannot deny the mysteriously strong pull of one skull in particular. This female skull soon has a face… not the one constructed by Hyun-min, but the ghostly Sadako-styled one she shows to him in terrifying visions.

Face is of special interest because of its blending of the hard, factual science of forensic reconstruction and the traditional, emotional Oriental themes of supernatural revenge. It’s a great marriage of themes, but the director’s (Sang-Gon Yoo) hand is unsure. There is too much material, it seems, for him to be able to cope in a balanced way. As a consequence a romantic angle seems contrived; the medical coincidences are too much to bear; and the horror angle that seemed so strong in the beginning winds up all but abandoned.

Face is probably worth a look for its nicely-styled, polished set pieces, its somewhat unique plot (for the genre), and good acting. The DVD is packed with additional release material, but as is the case with most of these A-horror imports, it’s long on talking heads (with captions, at least) but short on action and judicious edits.

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Review by Staci Layne Wilson