This Nasty, Nihilistic Homicide Thriller Is Frustratingly Torpid & Unintentionally Humorous

Issues have been fairly unusual currently for Dong-hwan (Park Jeong-min). After a lifetime of assuming his mom had deserted him in childhood, her carcass out of the blue will get excavated from deep throughout the mountains, revealing a probably violent demise some 40 years prior. Buried together with her bones is an outdated work badge from her time spent at a garment manufacturing unit, and a cascade of questions Dong-hwan might not need answered.

As its identify would possibly suggest, The Uglyis a nihilistic and continuously mean-spirited investigative thriller. Written and directed by Prepare to Busan filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho, its central thriller wraps across the purported hideousness of Dong-hwan’s deceased mom, Jung Younger-hee (Shin Hyun-been, who is simply ever proven from behind or else by means of the curtain of her bangs, thus by no means being revealed to us). That hook is very merciless and absurd; it inadvertently paves the trail for comedy the place hazard is the intent, particularly within the no-doubt clunky translation of Younger-hee’s pejorative nickname, “Dung Ogre.”

The timing of his mom’s reveal is tough for Dong-hwa, to say the least. He has been within the technique of facilitating a documentary on his father, Lim Yeong-gyu (Kwon Hae-hyo), a famend stamp engraving artist who occurs to be visually impaired. A person of delicate temperament whose mere presence has been labeled a “dwelling miracle,” Yeong-gyu is recreation for the acknowledgment of the press however irritated on the therapy of producer Kim Su-jin (Han Ji-hyeon), whose method in the direction of her topic borders on condescension.

On the 40-year belated funeral for Younger-hee, Dong-hwan and Yeong-gyu are confronted by her long-estranged sisters, whose antagonism reaches a fever pitch over the query of inheritance. And Su-jin, who sees a chance for a juicier piece, reforms the supposed fluff piece right into a thriller field lacking individuals investigation.

The Ugly Is Atmospherically Haunting But Narratively Irritating

In its ambiance and characterizations, Sang-ho has crafted a compelling yarn. However the movie is constrained by its personal strategies. Crafted as reportage and advised in 5 chapters (plus an epilogue), The Ugly is relayed principally in flashback, with Jeong-min taking part in the youthful model of his father. The method causes a ordinary pace-slowing that inhibits the movie’s endurance. Understandably so; The Ugly‘s back-and-forth nature is deliberately meant to reflect its central query. What, if something, of our familial previous is handed all the way down to youthful generations, and is violence realized or inherited?

In these flashbacks, Younger-hee is revealed as kind-hearted and well-intentioned, however relentlessly belittled and teased by a patriarchal system that’s designed to punish those that name out abuse quite than those who do the abusing. Having been forged out of her childhood household for revealing her father’s infidelity, Younger-hee meets Yeong-gyu within the midst of being the one worker courageous sufficient to dox her boss’s persistent sexual abuse.

Although not a standard horror within the method that followers of Sang-ho’s previous work might count on, The Ugly is, effectively, distinctly ugly. Its cinematography is clad in sepia tones and textured interiors of various ranges of decrepitude. When Su-jin’s investigation turns to Baek (Im Sung-jae), Younger-hee’s predatory boss, the movie takes a seedy flip in the direction of the appreciably gross. It is simply irritating that that highway is paved with molasses.

Maybe much more haunting than Baek’s sexual predilections is the suggestion that the previous, regardless of how nasty or evil, can certainly be buried with sufficient elbow grease. Although The Ugly‘s ending is frustratingly telegraphed from very early on, Sang-ho does depart us with a terrifying fact: that, generally, evil is hereditary.