'The Witch 2: The Other One' (2022) Movie Review

Park Hoon-jung’s The Witch: Part 1—Subversion is a deliberately paced, gradual build toward a brutal, bloody action/horror/sci-fi hybrid. It takes its time to lay the groundwork and establish the emotional stakes to that violence, toying with audience expectations along the way. The second chapter in this proposed trilogy, The Witch 2: The Other One, is a jumbled, tedious misfire that fails to accomplish much of any note.

'The Witch: Part 1-The Subversion' (2018) Movie Review

Koo Ja-yoon (Kim Da-mi) looks like a normal teenage girl. Sure, she’s exceptionally bright and talented, and extraordinarily devoted to her aging parents and their failing farm, but by most measures, she’s an average kid on the cusp of adulthood. Except in Park Hoon-jung’s The Witch: Part 1—The Subversion, she’s also an escaped child soldier with telekinetic powers on the run the government agency that genetically created her in a lab,  and she may or may not remember all of that. The result plays like an action-heavy sci-fi/horror version of The Long Kiss Goodnight, with Dark Angel flourishes thrown in for good measure. (And yes, I mean the James Cameron/Jessica Alba show from the late 1990s, and yes, I mean that in a good way.)

'The Witch: Subversion' Trailer: This Brutal South Korean Action Movie Hits Home Video Soon

Now that the Oscars are in the rearview (yay, Parasite), we can return our attention to our regularly scheduled programming: ultra-violent international genre cinema. To that end, here is the trailer for South Korean director Park Hoon-jung’s The Witch: Subversion. (Or The Witch: Part 1—The Subversion if you prefer.)