The Witch: Part 1: Subversion: A Recap
I want to introduce you to a genre of movies and dramas that I like very much. This is the world of Korean movies and dramas. I am actually more a fan of K-Dramas, but I occasionally watch a few movies. I found the movie we are going to be talking about today in a bid to introduce K-Dramas to a friend of mine. I knew he wouldn’t have the patience to sit through long hours of a drama and so I searched for a movie. He had made it clear that his movies must have blood, and lots of it, it had to have fights and guns and all the works. I, on the other hand, made it clear that I would not watch a film without a storyline and a catchy one at that. So, my journey began to find the fit and that led me to a movie called “The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion”.
The witch is a 2018 action/mystery which centers around a girl called Ja-yoon. The movie begins with the escape of a little girl from what seems to be a research facility performing experiments on children. It appears very gruesome as some very scary men, on the orders of a female scientist, Dr. Baek, hit a polythene covered in blood with metal pipes. Apparently, some children were under the polythene and she orders them to target their heads. It soon becomes obvious that a search is on for the missing little girl.
Our runaway girl (Ja-yoon) seems to have found her way to the farm of an elderly couple. The man finds he collapsed Ja-yoon, takes her in and calls a doctor for her. It seems she has lost her memories. The couple, who seem not to her any child, adopt her.
The movie progresses to 10 years’ time where Ja-yoon is seen trying to help her family who own a cattle ranch in a time when the industry seems to be facing a challenge. It seems her mother is now down with dementia. On the advice of her best friend, Do Myung-hee, she auditions for the national singing competition in other to win a large reward. In addition to her singing, she shows the judges her special ability which is making the microphone levitate. This is broadcast and Dr, Baek sees her, recognizes her and asks for her to retrieved.
After successfully completing the first round, she advances to the second round which is to hold in Seoul, the nation’s capital. Ja-yoon and Myung-hee proceed to Seoul by train where they are confronted by a strange man, Noble man. He speaks to Ja-yoon as if he already knows her and is very surprised when Ja-yoon insists she does not know him. He persists and even speaks in English expecting her to understand him. He eventually leaves them and takes out his anger on another man who speaks to him rudely.
After the audition, which she scales through successfully, Ja-yoon is seen in the toilet struggling with serious headaches and nosebleeds. After she emerges from the toilet, she is met by a group of strange men, manages to evade them and it seems she just escaped abduction.
At home, we see her struggle to sleep only to wake up soon after. When she does not see her friend with whom she went to bed earlier with, she goes out only to meet her friend at gunpoint. To the surprise of herself and her friend, she manages to kill all the men holding them at gunpoint.
After the killing, it seems like the strange man from the train had been in the house the whole time. Not only had he witnessed the whole scene, he had tied her parents up and was promising to release them only if Ja-yoon follows him to a laboratory where she would get answers about herself. On getting to the facility, she is restrained.
At the facility, Dr. Baek introduces herself and explains that she had genetically modified Ja-yoon. This would explain her impressive intellect, talent and skill she used in killing the gunmen. She also explains that Ja-yoon’s headaches were a symptom of a brain disease for which she has created a serum for. The serum is to be injected every month and without it Ja-yoon would eventually die. The serum also allows Ja-yoon to make full use of her powers. The serum is injected in Ja-yoon and soon after she frees herself from the restraints.
A twist emerges when Ja-yoon confesses that she never suffered from memory loss. She had been searching for a solution to her disease and apparently was running out of time, so she decided to draw the attention of the researchers in the hope that they already had a solution. This had prompted her appearing on the audition program.
The movie proceeds to show the different fights that ensue as Ja-yoon proceeds to discover more vials of the serum. She heads over to the hospital after going home and hands some vials of the serum to her father instructing him to inject it into her mother to alleviate the effect of the dementia. Her father is not surprised to see her in blood stained clothes as he states that her growing up was not very normal.
Ja-yoon’s search for more vials leads her to the home of the now late Dr. Baek’s twin sister. The movie closes with her threatening to kill a girl who lurks around her if she lays a finger on her.
The witch is action-packed and has a beautiful twist which honestly is the best part of the movie for me. It is also devoid of love stories which many have accused Korean movies of solely being invested in. I believe it is a good way to step into the amazing world of Korean entertainment.
Thank you.
