The first in a series of reviews of films shown at the Fantasia international film festival in Montreal.

A woman is murdering people in downtown Seoul, seemingly at random. The only clue she leaves behind at the scene of each crime is a sticker of an anime character, Princess Aurora. As the police try to track her down, one of the officers discovers that not only might there be a method to the killer’s madness, but he may be involved personally.

Princess Aurora starts off with incredible promise which the rest of the film sidesteps completely. The opening scene is one of the most surprising, brutal little vignettes I have seen in a long time. From that first blood-soaked scene, the impression one gets is that this is going to be like a Korean Falling Down, as the petty behaviour of the people around her drive the killer toward deranged retribution. It’s truly unfortunate when the red herring is more interesting than the actual reveal.

Most all of the killer’s victims are introduced as they’re causing grief for people weaker than them. It’s this aspect of the film that really pissed me off. This bullying is the only aspect of their personalities we’re allowed to see, giving us reason to believe that this is how they are 24/7. If the film were an allegory, this flimsy characterization would make some sense. As it stands, the reason we’re shown the victims in this light is to emphasize that they truly deserved it even before we discover why they are being chosen by the killer. The filmmaker has completely stacked the deck here, making it impossible to feel any empathy for the victims, and completely discarding any attempt at creating moral conflict over the killer’s actions. I don’t mind being manipulated, but this is so ham-fisted it’s insulting.

This absence of complexity seeps through to the rest of the film, making all but the end sequences nothing more than a bland police procedural. Princess Aurora has not one but two codas, both of which, like the very beginning, promise a great movie experience that could have been. Here we not only get another visually stunning kill, but the film also delves into issues of personal responsibility, no matter how depraved. It poses some interesting questions, but it would have been nice if those themes had been explored throughout its running time instead of tacked onto the end.

What could have been great, given a little more thought, bypasses good and settles for mediocre.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 at 10:55 am and is filed under Movies, Foreign, Fantasia, Serial Killer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.