Dipping your toes into the waters of an unknown cinematic landscape of a specific country is something I always find interesting. Movies can be a great representation of the spirit of a country and through movies you sometimes get a feeling of important issues or its history. Although I was initially hesitant to check out Korean movies because I heard they could be quite violent I started watching them about 3 years ago and have since checked out many of them of which a lot were awesome. I love that they are usually very unpredictable which means they often will manage to surprise me. Having seen most of the well-known ones I have been searching for lists of great Korean movies to find new titles and Midnight FM was one of them.
Midnight FM, as the title suggests, has something to do with radio. Go Seon-yeong (Soo Ae) is a radio host who’s about to do her last show and move to America together with her daughter. Through the years she has delighted her listeners with her stories which she often related to movies and playing songs from soundtracks. She is planning to make her last show a special one, but as it turns out not in the way she’s hoping. She receives a text message from a man named Dong-Su (Yoo Ji-Tae (Lady Vengeance/Oldboy)) who says he has broken into her apartment and is holding her sister and daughter hostage. If she wants to see her again she has to play the songs he wants to and say the things he tells her to. She can’t let anyone know about this or he will punish her for it.
Now you might think that having the main character having to present a radio show to save her daughter could be quite boring, but I can assure you it isn’t. This movie uses the moments songs are playing and commercial breaks that are taken to great effect and provides lots of thrills. Yoo Ji-Tae is a very menacing villain here, who has meticulously planned everything and is truly someone Soo Ae’s character has to take seriously. Besides a lot of psychological games, Midnight FM also provides lots of action which all leads up to a great end.
Score: 7
It seems like Korea is putting out the majority of the quality, original movies these days. Too bad this one can’t be ordered from Netflix: I will have to track it down.
Yeah, there is a lot of quality stuff, although just like in Hollywood they do put out a lot of silly movies as well. Hope you’ll be able to get a hold of it!
Wow. Great premise. This one is going on my list!
I also suggest you check out No Mercy which is even better than this.
Sounds great to me – psychological thrills and Korean films is something I’ve never really looked in to checking out – I’ve heard some good things here and there, but this has enticed me enough to take a proper look. Thanks for the heads up here.
There are so many great ones to check out. Read my review of Nameless Gangster as I name quite a lot of movies worth seeing in that:
http://myfilmviews.com/2012/08/08/nameless-gangster-2012/
Great, thanks, I’ll that a look over and have to check them out.