R-Point: The Point Of
No Return (2004/Korea/DTS)
Picture: C+
Sound: B+ Extras: C+ Film: B-
Military narratives and Supernatural Horror do not mix
well and are not easy to pull off. War
is so much about bloody realism, while Supernatural storytelling is the dark
side of happy fantasies gone wrong and both are about loosing control in
different ways. It is especially so in
U.S. productions, where Vietnam Syndrome and the evasion of that phenomenon
recently revived by current military missteps that has made the two a
problem. Though James Cameron’s Aliens
(1986) and Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (1997) took their own
approaches to essentially the same material, those Horror/Military hybrids had
nothing supernatural about them. Kong
Su-Chang’s R-Point: The Point Of No Return (2004) joins Neil Marshall’s Dog
Soldiers (2002, all films reviewed elsewhere on this site) in their
respective attempts to combine the two.
Marshall’s British pic has become a cult hit, while Su-Chang’s thriller
became a huge hit in Korea and is now finding an audience on DVD.
Ironically happening at the time of the Vietnam fiasco, a
mysterious radio message comes to South Korean military headquarters and the
rest of the film tries to figure out what the indescript message was
about. When a party is sent to
investigate, all the soldiers who are supposed to be there are missing. As they investigate, they realize this is
more than just some massive AWOL situation or even an enemy abduction. Then some ugly twists being.
Though this does not stay with you forever, while you
watch, the film always takes itself and its audience seriously. There is genuine suspense throughout and
some good performances to boot. The
production design is somewhat reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal
Jacket (1987) despite following the Vietnam cliché of bring in the “savage
jungle” without the “us and them” dichotomy from 1980s Hollywood productions
that tried to tell us the U.S. could “win” in Vietnam. This film is not even concerned with any of
that, then when the Horror starts to kick in, becomes so far removed from any
regular War film that it goes into somewhat new territory. R-Point: The Point Of No Return is
worth a good look.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is not as sharp
and clear as one would like, but its stylized and color-limited look are still
solid and intended to look this way since it is both Military and Horror
genre. Suk Hyung-Jing’s cinematography
is has its moments, if not as consistent as something like (also reviewed on
this site) 301/302, but at least it does not try to imitate much of what
we have seen before. However, the
Kubrick/Alton influence is also inescapable in the visual respect. The sound is here in Dolby Digital 5.1 EX
that is not bad, but also in a much superior DTS ES 5.1 mix that is one of the
best we have heard in a while (ES or not) and the best we have heard from
Tartan to date. That says something
since they do DTS virtually all the time, to their credit. It is rich, full, enveloping, active, clever
and the Korean dialogue is warm and clear.
The combination is pretty good, though I wish the picture had been
better. Tartan should earmark this as one
of their first HD releases when that time comes.
Extras include trailers for this and other Tartan
releases, three featurettes (one on recreating Vietnam 1972, one on the special
effects and the last on the making of the film overall) and an audio commentary
by Su-Chang, producer Kang-Hyuk and location supervisor (in Cambodia) Wan-Shik
in Korean. It is subtitled in English
and is not bad, though they fall a bit into that “animated radio” pitfall of
describing too much of what the viewer is obviously seeing. Otherwise, a very good release from Tartan.
- Nicholas Sheffo
