A reporter, Ji-won, published an article about sex-scandals. There were some people threatened by this article, and Ji-won starts to receive harassing phone calls and death threat emails. She changes her phone number and moves until they are able to catch the men responsible. However, strange things start to happen once she got the new phone number. She starts seeing this girl, and begins to receive these strange phone calls. Soon after, her friend's daughter picks up the phone and screams. She then starts acting very strangely, and Ji-won searches to figure out what is going on.

Sounds like your typical Asian ghost story, right? Well, it is. I'll say this; Phone was one of the movies that inspired me to make this site in the first place. Why? Because I hate that everyone that reviews this movie bashes it. Sure it seems like its Korea's attempt to copy the Japanese ghost girl phase that has been going around. Sure it isn't original. Sure it has some major problems with consistency in the story. But... Oh well. You know what made up for it? The actors. This is a perfect example of great actors saving a movie from being just so-so. And I tell you what, the little girl that plays Young-ju... Holy shit... she scared the FUCK out of me. Case Closed.

Phone was the first Korean movie I saw, when I was just beginning to watch Asian horror. So I'm a bit partial. I'm going to start out by pointing out the flaws, and there are many.

The stalker sub-plot has got to go. It was a neat idea at first if they had stuck with it and had people believing that the stalkers were the cause of Ji-won's paranoia, and not the ghost. It would have add a whole "maybe she's going insane" aspect to it. What they did instead was basically getting rid of the stalker in one scene that was so badly cut, you didn't know what the hell was going on. It would have been a lot better if they had gotten rid of them once Ji-won moved and changed her phone number.

The scares were good. They were typical jump scares. The only problem I had is there were too many of them. After the 35473587325 scares in 5 minutes it starts to get.... how you say.... less scary. But that's a personal thing. I also thought it was odd on how easy it was for Ji-won to accept she was being haunted by a ghost and she just jumped right on the idea that the ghost is haunting Young-ju. Don't get me wrong, she was scared, but she seemed to accept way too soon. That aspect of it could have been caused by the plot being a little bit too fast for its own good.

Now for my praise. Most of the praise will be in the Technical section =P. Phone did manage to scare me. Yeah, they get a bit repetitive, and it does use every Asian horror movie scare in the book, but there are some good scares, mainly the stairway scene.... The pacing, though a bit too fast at times, is not bad. It tends to be a bit faster paced than most Asian movies. The story was good, and the twist at the end made me stumble a bit. The suspense was well done, I was at the edge of my seat. Well I think that’s all the praise I can think of that I can put in this section.

The Acting. Wow... I'm so impressed. The first time around I mainly noticed Seo-woo Eun (Young-ju) because she was just so damn good (and fucking scary) as the possessed little girl. I mean... damn... I'm in awe. I think she will go down in my book as the cutest/creepiest kid actress. When I watched Phone a second time, I noticed how amazing everyone else was. Ji-won Ha (Ji-won) was great. She was about the same as she is in the other movies I've seen her (Sex is Zero and Nightmare). She shows suspense and fear very well. She can do a great serious face ;D. I really like her, she seems like she's underacting, but not in a bad way. I love Desmond Harrington for the same reasons. Yu-mi Kim (Ho-jeong) was outstanding. She didn't get much to work with till the end, but damn, was I impressed. Ji-yeon Choi (Jin-hee) did awesome at being the vengeful ghost girl. I can't go into her character too much due to spoilers, but damn is she good at showing emotion. Woo-jae Choi (Chang-hoon) didn't have much to do. He didn't really stand out, but wasn't bad. Even the actors that played the smaller parts were great. The girl at the beginning and Jin-Hee's friend were great and clearly frightened. They were scared out of their mind!

The directing was very stylish. Great cinematography and color schemes. I thought Byeong-ki Ahn did a much better job in Phone than Nightmare. The score was perfect, It added a lot to the suspense.

Ok, I realized that I have a soft spot for Phone. There are definitely flaws, and there were a lot of stuff they could have done better with. Most of the complaints people have about Phone are good complaints. Of course, it is every stereotypical Asian ghost girl cliché put into one movie, but I still really enjoyed it, dammit. I would recommend this to someone starting out in Asian horror, mainly because it feels closer to an American horror movie than most. Normally in my book that would be a bad thing, but I'll let it pass with Phone. The pacing is faster than most Asian movies, and it has some pretty creepy scares. I found Phone to be a much more enjoyable film than One Missed Call, a Japanese killer phone movie by Miike. And I love Miike to death. At least the suspense in Phone keeps you going to where you never get bored.

Acting:
Ok, I think I stressed enough how much I loved the acting in Phone.

Directing:
I liked a lot.

Score:
Good score helped the movie a lot.

Action:
Not much action. There's a small chase scene, harassing stalkers, and a battle at the end.

Gore:
Bloody email threat pictures, and that's about it. There's some blood, but not much.

Boobage:
Well there's one boob shot, but its not one to freak out about, just a fake naked mutilated body on the computer. There was a pretty akward sex scene that you see nothing in.

Cute/Scary Little Girls:
*hides*

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