Vanishing Time: A Boy Who Returned (2016)

I've decided to watch nothing but Korean films for the next week. I'm dubbing it Korean Week (how original). My first thought was to scour Netflix for Korean films, and I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting to find much. But lo and behold the first film in the list stood out as something worth watching. So I sat down for 2 hours to watch Vanishing Time: The Boy Who Returned (the quality of the title is not indicative of the film.)

Vanishing Time, as I'm going to refer to it as from this point forward, is a sci-fi drama film from director Tae-hwa Eom (Ingtoogi). I went into this film with very little expectation and I feel as if this was the right way to go. Knowing nothing about this made the experience that much more pleasurable as Vanishing Time has a pretty weird plot. The plot of Vanishing time feels like it would fare pretty poorly anywhere else. Essentially a bunch of kids venture out into the hills to see a tunnel being demolished. While they're there they uncover a hole in a tree (very Alice in Wonderland) and creep inside only to discover a magical egg that stops time. I feel under the direction of most western directors this would have been a pretty terrible kids movie akin to something like Bridge to Terabithia. However, here it is handled incredibly well, making for a moving drama about loss and growing up. However, for all the praise I can/will give it, if I'm being honest these moving moments and its serious tone don't ever feel like they are deserved.

That sounds harsh I appreciate, but allow me to elaborate. You see while I'm watching this I'm moved, I'm not crying, but I do feel the pain of the characters and sympathise with their plight. Only I'm constantly reminded (by memory and the movie itself) that this was all caused by breaking a magical egg (not that I could come up with a better way for time to stop). And so when these characters are bawling their eyes out over the death of another character, I am both moved and finding it a bit amusing. Which, I'll be blunt here, sucks. While I was watching Vanishing Time I couldn't place why it felt really (for the lack of a better word) odd, but this is it. It is a really brilliant film that touches on some really hard hitting subjects with such elegance and grace, but stumbles when it comes back to its original genre and plot points.

But to be honest none of that ruined my enjoyment of the film. The acting, cinematography and pacing of the film is almost all perfect. And like I said the tone and themes of the film are handled with such grace that it truly does make you emotional and the ending credits finish with such impact. And because of this it's hard to review the film. I sit here, ready to type out a huge review, but I'm struggling to find the words.

This film is good, it really is, and I enjoyed it. The themes, tone, acting, whatever, is all, without a doubt, phenomenal. It is just the odd choice of opening exposition that dampens the experience. I would recommend this film, it is well made and enjoyable, but I'm not sure if it's a film I'll ever watch again.

6/10