April 9, 2024 • 32 mins
In this sequel to the popular The Witch: Subversion, the story moves awar from a confined secret lab and out into the real world after a mysterious girl emerges as the soul survivor of a bloody raid on the top-secret research facility behind the clandestine Witch Program. She is quickly rescued by a couple who understands the level of threat the girl now faces. However, as the assassins tasked with locating and silencing the girl move closer, the lives of all three are in grave danger.
Starring Cynthia, Jo Min-soo, Kim Da-mi, Sung Yoo-bin, Park Eun-bin, Seo Eun-soo, Justin John Harvey, Jin Goo, and more.
Music by Mowg
Cinematography by Young-ho Kim
Written and Directed by Park Hoon-Jung
Starring Cynthia, Jo Min-soo, Kim Da-mi, Sung Yoo-bin, Park Eun-bin, Seo Eun-soo, Justin John Harvey, Jin Goo, and more.
Music by Mowg
Cinematography by Young-ho Kim
Written and Directed by Park Hoon-Jung
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:28):
All right, listen, I'm aback another a dish. How we doing
(01:26):
out there? Good? Great?Gray Yyan dy yan buke. Thank you
for joining the most unlistenable movie podcastthere is out there. So as you
see on your screen, your dial, however you're choosing to join me today,
I know the cast and crew ofthis film definitely appreciate you. Notice
how I did not say me theWitch two the other one. The Witch
(01:51):
two, the other one. Thisis a sequel to a movie I did
back well, It's Gotta Beat Shitthree years ago. At this point,
finally, the much hyped sequel hashit physical release and streaming, which you
can get right now as we're talkingthe Witch part well, the Witch two
(02:15):
colon the other one. It isdirected by Park Hun Jung, who did
New World and of course the firstinstallment, The Witch Subversion, and also
definitely features a stellar cast, includingnewcomer Shinsei Ya, the award winning Park
Upin who was in Stove League.Do you like Brahms. It's also got
(02:37):
Cio Unsu my Golden Life Kingmaker.We got Jingu from Mother If you haven't
seen that one, that's a wildone. Descendants of the Sun Sung Yu
Bin who was in the Battle Roadto Victory perhaps Love, as well as
Chi Minsu, Lee Jong Siok,and Kim Dami, who was in the
(03:00):
first one the protagonist in the firstone. I'm not really going to be
getting into part one. I'll justsay this is the second installment into a
very big Korean film that are verybig undertaking for this particular Korean film,
So a couple of things, notgonna trash it, not going to laud
(03:27):
over it. I have very mixedemotions about this one, and I kind
of knew going into it that weprobably weren't going to have necessarily the quality
of the first one, reason beingas the first one is actually packaged,
(03:49):
packaged and marketed by Warner Brothers.So you know, in the first one
you see that Warner Brothers logo comeacross the screen, You're like, oh
shit. You know they went andscooped out or scooped up the rights for
the which this witch series from theseKorean filmmakers, So it's they got money,
(04:09):
they got distribution, should be apretty big payout, or at least
a get audience audience members that maybeyou didn't have before just by having that
logo. Second one starts out andthere is no Warner Brothers logo, So
I don't know what happened kind ofin the interim, and I didn't I
(04:30):
didn't really feel like researching at onebecause you guys know, I don't really
research much. This is a showto get you to watch something. I'm
not necessarily selling you on it,just trying to give you my passion.
But I kind of knew by whathappened, you know. So And another
(04:51):
thing too, is it you know, me going forward with the research and
finding out whatever, whyever, thewhatever the reason was that Warner Brothers decided
to drop this movie, I don'tknow, and I don't care because it
doesn't matter for the most part.At play as well, there's there's a
couple moments where kind of like alot of Asian action films, where we
(05:15):
and I've mentioned it in shows previousthat you guys listened to before, just
we they they have a tough timegiving too much of a shit about their
CG effects. And you know,if you're an artist, you could make
the argument that it doesn't you know, want we don't have the money to
do this practical and this is avery big film, very science fiction,
(05:39):
e very thrillery, and I understandit from that point. So, you
know, if a filmmaker's just like, listen, did the sentiment come across,
because that's you know, if thestory's not coming across, I don't
really give a shit about what theeffects look like. And and I would
listen to that argument, like itshouldn't matter, Like if you can't pay
for you know, a fifteen milliondollar action car sequence or whatever the hell
(06:03):
it is, the story should beable to stand on its own. And
for the most part it does.It gets a little convoluted here and there,
but it's it's not you know,completely misunderstood or you know, between
the Honestly, it's the time jumping. Isn't what kind of messed with me.
(06:26):
It was kind of keeping track ofa bunch of characters that the way
that it's executed, we are meantto care one way or another, whether
you know, you want the characterto die or you want the character to
live. They present so many charactersin a very short period of time,
(06:46):
and I will give the film creditfor the most part, it's executed perfectly.
Like I am giving a shit aboutthe villains, I am caring a
little bit about our hero. Now, I if I'm being honest with myself
and to you guys, I caredmore about the protagonist in the first one
than I do this one. Butnevertheless, I mean between the acting,
(07:13):
some of the action pieces, andand it's emotional in this too, which
so don't think that I'm saying,oh, the first one is so much
better. It's just kind of Ithink sometimes critics out there are a little
too tough and not taking a stepback and looking at the situation, like
(07:33):
this movie wants to be in thesame stratosphere of big as, you know,
like a Marvel movie or something likethat. Now, it's much darker
than a Marvel movie, so obviouslyyou're going to eliminate some of your audience.
I believe both these films are ratedR, and that's just gonna happen.
(07:55):
Nature of the Beast, and andand just so we're clear, I
don't want it to be a piecefilm. I think you would lose some
of the intensity that this film brings. So you just got to got to
keep that in mind. I've reada couple of reviews from people online about
this one, and they're they're notsaying that it's bad, but you can
(08:16):
definitely tell like it wasn't considered likean absolute epic, which is what I
think the filmmakers were trying to do. I think in terms of the size
of it, it stands on itsown pretty well. I think where it
kind of buckles a little bit ismaybe shoehorning a character in here and there,
(08:41):
one that comes to mind who Iactually thought did a really good job
and one of the actors. Youkind of have a comedic duo, a
a almost a buddy duo between aKorean woman and a New Zealand I'm sorry,
South African man, South African,but the fact of the matter is
there's a way that you can implementthose two in there where it doesn't feel
(09:03):
forced upon you. And there arejust moments where those two, though they're
acting as good and they're nailing thelines that they're getting or facial expressions,
especially from the South African dude,that it plays really well. But I
almost feel like we're just inserting itin here so the film as a whole
doesn't come off as dark. Youknow, there's something more, there's something
(09:28):
more redeeming than just how the endkinds of kind of comes to a close
and Just so you guys know,it ain't end in part two, so
be on the lookout for Part three. No spoilers, I'm going to tell
you how we get there or whatyou do see at the end. But
this was always meant to be I'mpretty sure, if memory serves, this
(09:50):
was always meant to be a trilogy. Now, some of the parts where
I kind of felt we had areal opportunity to do something differ from the
first one. The fact of thematter is we just didn't it almost There
are moments, several moments throughout thisfilm, and again just so we're clear,
this is not me saying that thefilm's bad, not at all.
(10:11):
In fact, I'm one of thosepeople that I don't shit on pieces like
Marvel or Star Wars or anything fortrying to get that bag right, trying
to get that money. I don't. I don't shit on people like I
think something that resonated with me,which is kind of funny. Michael Bay.
It was either Michael Bay or JerryBruckheimer said it best. I'll stop
(10:31):
making these when you guys stop goingto see them. So the fact of
the matter is all the people thatbitch about transformers and bad boys and whatever
the fuck else. They wouldn't makethose films if you stop showing up to
go see them. So when youlook at it in the context of this
one like it. The first installmentwas highly anticipated, played really well,
(10:58):
and the second one they tried tojust take a lot of things. And
what you'll learn is we have twodifferent girls that are the protagonists of this.
They are both experiments, the experimentsmade to be killing machines. Okay,
so in fact, I can reada little bit of the synopsis in
this sequel to the famous Korean scifi In this sequel to the famous Korean
(11:24):
sci fi action thriller, The WitchSubversion, again, this is part two,
called the Other One. The storymoves away from a confined secret lab
and out into the real world aftera mysterious girl emerges as the sole survivor
of a bloody raid on the researchfacility behind the top secret Witch program.
(11:45):
I'm gonna say that again, soyou guys get a little SYNOPSI. After
a mysterious girl emerges this as thesole survivor of a bloody raid on the
research facility behind the top secret Witchprogram. She is rescued by a hair
of civilians who soon realize the girlis both mighty and in very grave danger.
(12:07):
However, as the assassins tasked withlocating and silencing the girl move ever
so Klausa, the lives of everyonearound her fall under increasingly great peril.
The most important thing anybody should knowin this one is that everybody wants to
kidnap or ally with Cynthia, whichis our new protagonist. I believe she's
(12:30):
called RC two or ARC one,that's her scientific name. Let me let
me double check for you. Hemmmin president arc one. So Cynthia is
just a name that she was given, but she is ark one, a
ark one, and so the mostimportant thing to know is everybody wants to
either kidnap or ally with Cynthia.Now, remember I said it gets a
(12:52):
kind of confusing, like in termsof how many characters are brought to light.
Well, listen to this kidnap orwith Cynthia, and they're all somehow
related to each other. Seriously,everybody in this film is somebody's ex partner,
ex sibling, or potential future partneror ex partner. The good news
(13:16):
is for the second screen viewer isyou don't need to did you Guys,
did I tell you about the termsecond screen viewer? This is this new
term that I just learned, andit drives me fucking nuts. I read
an article a week two weeks agothat's kind of shit on a TV show
one of the executives, and Ibelieve it was at Netflix. Don't quote
me on that, but I believeit was at Netflix where one of the
(13:39):
TV shows that they were doing.Some of the notes that those filmmakers of
that TV show got was it isnot second screen friendly enough, which means
that you need to not be sodetailed with the plot so that the person
watching the show on their second screen, because the first is their fucking cell
(14:03):
phone, the viewers might get confused. Is this what we're coming to?
Gang? You need to have yourphone. I don't understand, like you
watch movies and TV shows to getsomething out of it, to feel something,
right, I mean just in vagueblanket terms. Right. You know
(14:26):
you look at cat videos to behappy, blah blah blah. Well,
you sit down a movie for thesame shit. You sit down for the
movie, get through the story,and then you determine whether you like it
or not. This idea that youneed, like if you're bored, here's
a fucking idea. Turn it offand give something else a chance. Don't
fucking get twenty five percent out ofit because you were on your fucking phone.
(14:50):
That said the second screen. Thegood news for the second screen viewer
is that you don't need to keepa list of all all the relationships that
are going on here, because itdoes get kind of bogged down and a
little wordy and how all these peopleknow each other and what they want from
each other. So I'm not evengoing to deny that, but the fact
(15:13):
of the matter is you can fuckingtry, and you ain't gonna fucking know
if you got your goddamn phone out. Shit, why do I need it?
Why do you make me say thisshit to you people? Can you
tell I'm still fucking stewing about thatgoddamn article it, dude, it drives
me nuts, like no one's I'mnot this type of person that I used
to be, like say, tenyears ago, where it's like, oh,
fucking vine and TikTok and all thatother shit. Stupid Listen, however,
(15:35):
you get entertained, do your thing, but like you owe it to
whoever made that TikTok that fucking whateveryou watched on x or Instagram by lah
snore. You owe it to themto give them your undivided attention. I
don't understand why you can't just dothe same with movies, Like what,
just put your phone in another fuckingroom, like to me, And I'm
(15:56):
not even gonna sit here and tryto front with y'all like I do.
Sometimes I'm reaching for my phone inlulls in different movies. I just did
it with fucking Monkey Man, whichis a fine movie, but there's a
couple parts. Like you get tothe point where you've seen as many movies
as me and some of the otherpeople that do movie podcasts, you can
spot a beat from a mile away, a beat within the script, a
(16:18):
beat within the action, you knowwhatever. But I'm not gonna stand here
and tell you that I haven't triedto reach for my phone a couple of
times. Would you like a littlepro tip for yourself? Put your phone
in another fucking room, Because like, if I'm watching something at home,
and even if I start getting alittle bored by what I'm seeing, I
may reach in my pocket for myphone, But if it's another room,
(16:41):
I just give up. Like Imay reach for it once or twice throughout
a film that I'm watching that maynot be the most engaging, but the
fact of the matter is my phoneis in another fucking room, so I
end up providing my full attention,excuse me, to whatever we're watching.
So something to consider, gang don'tI don't know. I just assume you'd
(17:06):
turn something off. Well, yousee. I go back and forth on
that, because if you're twenty twominutes into a movie that you've never seen,
or if you're twenty two minutes intoa show that you just started,
I would argue there's no possible wayfor you to gauge if you're gonna like
it or not. And you knowthere's nuances to everything, like if you're
not a horror fan and you knowyour significant other like me, turns on
(17:30):
something that's just completely brutally violent,all right, well then move on to
the next one. If it's notyou, not your bag. But in
terms of like it, you knoweverybody should watch dramas, So in that
context, like, you're not gonnabe able to tell or have a good
idea of a fucking story if youwatch thirty one minutes of a French drama
(17:55):
from the fucking seventies. It's impossible. So I go back and forth on
that, But I'm also saying toyou, so I don't sound like such
a fucking fossil and old head.Just turn it the fuck off and find
something else, you know. Butthe main thing is get yourself out of
this headspace that you can be doingboth being on your phone and watching a
film. No, you can't notto fully engulf yourself in the piece that
(18:21):
you're watching. It's impossible. It'simpossible. I talk to my chick about
this all the time. Momentum,you know, you paw, You're an
hour and fifteen minutes into a twohour movie and you pause it and take
a fucking thirty minute break. Youdon't have the same momentum going into the
end of act two into act threethat you did if you just would have
stayed put. So you're actually doingyourself a disservice in terms of how you're
(18:42):
going to take in whatever media you'rewatching. Are we even talking about which
too anymore? Jesus Christ, whydo you This is why I said,
is most unlistenable podcast ever. Don'tknow how much longer I'm going to be
doing it, But you know whatever, I have obligations, and then after
I fulfill all eighty two of myobligations, I'm going to reassess on whether
(19:03):
or not I should continue fucking doingthis. But anyway, that's here nor
there. That's a long time off. So second screen viewer, it does
help to know that the wheelchair bounddoctor Beach who was in Part one,
Doctor Bajach, who was in Partone, she's got a little bit of
a cordial rivalry going on here.I'm not gonna tell you who if you
(19:26):
haven't seen part one, I'm notgoing to tell you what her character is
responsible for, nor her relationships withsome of the characters on here. But
like I said, you're gonna haveif you are going to be interested and
see this. Whether you you knowyou like a couple of the pictures that
I posted on it, I urgeyou to go back and watch the first
one, which I believe is onPrime right now and High TV maybe even
(19:47):
two. B. I gotta tellyou just a little side note to B
is getting some awesome selections. Justthrowing that out there. But so this
is gonna be more Part two centric. Anyway, Doctor the Bayak has a
cordial rivalry with Jang who I mentionedearlier, and they are both looking for
Ja Yun after the events of whichthe Which part one. So that's Ja
(20:11):
Yun, who is the protagonist fromthe first one. But we may have
ourselves another problem because it looks likesome other chick is ready to fucking find
responsible, find the people responsible foressentially stealing her childhood. But much of
the Which Part two concerns the confluenceof the captors that surrounds Cynthia, and
(20:37):
there's also a decent sized B storyinvolving Kihung Yi and Daigil, who are
already embroiled in this Western style plotto protect their dead dad's land from murderous
uncle Jungdo played by Jingu, butalso plots come back to Cynthia, a
(20:59):
blessedly un complicated character with no pastand a striking resemblance to our protagonists from
the first one, Ja June,so a lot to like throughout here.
There are several scenes that you knowif you listen to the show. I
mentioned it all the time. There'sa way that Asian filmmakers conduct the choreography
(21:25):
of a for a fight scene thatwe just don't do very often here and
it's very prevalent in this They areSouth Korea, I would argue as making
probably the best overall films in thepast decade, or at least up there,
and it shows in this one.They have an eye that sometimes you
just don't or for most of thetime, you just don't see with American
(21:48):
filmmakers. So it's really fun tokind of see, Like the bus sequence
that happens in the beginning, theway that it's done is really good.
A couple of the sequences towards theend I thought were really good in terms
of how it's presented to us,whether when the score hits when it's supposed
(22:08):
to the effects. You know,there's several times throughout this where one thing
that I will say that Asian filmmakersdo, like I rip on the quality
of CG A lot I do,but I will say they use it.
You can tell where they spend theirmoney. And I don't mean that in
(22:29):
a negative way, like there arecertain things that you're like, oh,
that was a little rocky, butthen they save the money for let's say,
some of the end sequences that I'mnot going to spoil here and there
where the movie falls just a littleshort in comparison to the first. Is
(22:49):
it has heart in this fell I'mnot even going to pretend that it doesn't,
but like the first one, justnot to me, it doesn't.
I feel like I heard more forour protagonists in The Which Part one than
I did Part two. I'm justgonna be honest with you, and I
understand that the way that they're shapingit, ultimately we're gonna care about both
(23:14):
of them heading into the third whenall the fucking shit ass villains meet there,
tomize, but we're not there yet, So I just got to call
a spade a spade. I feelwe sacrificed, and all action films do
this, not just The Which theWhich Part two. Sometimes we will sacrifice
(23:36):
plot for action sequences. Most notablethat I can think of in recent memory
that just absolutely fucking annoyed the shitout of me was Aquaman, the first
one. I haven't watched the secondone yet, who knows when I'll get
around to that, but definitely thefirst one. I felt like every time
we were about to have a goodmoment, a good emotional moment, it
(24:00):
is derailed by explosions and action piecesand blah blah blah and I found myself
thinking that a couple times within thisone, even though I prefer the action
that I'm seeing in this one thanI do then I do Aquaman. But
nevertheless, that flaw is still therewhere There's several times where I'm like,
oh, fuck, man, Iwant to care. I want to care,
(24:22):
Like there's a scene with it.I'll just say an uncle an arc
one, and I wanted to caremore about those two in the moment than
I did. Whereas I want tosay, the last third of this movie,
I just kind of wanted it toend so we could get to the
(24:45):
third one. Like I felt likeI had seen all I needed to see
for Cynthia's character, it wasn't nearas flashed out, fleshed out as the
girl from the first one. Andit's I feel like we were kind of
limping into the third installment. Andthat's coming off the heels of me saying
(25:06):
that I think that they put theirmoney in the right places for Act three.
I really do believe that. Butyou can only do so much with
so many characters within a film.It's a hell of a lot easier to
do let's say, a Game ofThrones or a Lord of the Rings where
you I'm sorry, Game of Thrones, where you have all these characters,
(25:27):
you can stretch that into a TVshow. I think very rarely do we
see an occurrence like Lord of theRings with the extended edition, where we
have all these characters, but thatextra hour and twenty minutes per film really
plays dividends. But if you thinkback, there's not a whole lot where
it's successful if you have fucking tento fifteen characters right and trying to get
(25:55):
everybody their moment. Like I goback to the example that I said at
the time of the show between theKorean and South African that are looking for
Cynthia, Like, I know thatI'm meant to care about these characters in
some form, whether they're good orevil, but I don't, you know,
like I feel like, man,you know what this You want to
(26:15):
know what I felt about that thecouple and again not saying anything bad about
their performance. I thought their performancewas good. In fact, the comedy
actually works, but it does feellike it's kind of shoved down my throat
in a way where it's just like, yeah, the first one was pretty
dark, right, Let's have somecomedy, you know, let's hate some
(26:36):
comedy, but I mean, itis what it is. You can't it's
it's teeters On fucking impossible. Bythe way, the I've been saying that
the character's name is Cynthia the wholetime. That's actually the actress's name.
I do apologize. Her name inthis is actually just girl or arc one.
(26:57):
Cynthia is the name of the actresswho who plays the girl. So
we got Cynthia playing the girl.We got Joe Minsou who plays doctor Bayak.
We got Kim Dummy who plays KuJuan Yun or Ja Yun Ku,
which was for the first one,but you don't. I'm not going to
ruin anything, but we'll just sayshe makes an appearance, right gang we
(27:18):
got. We got Sung yu binwho plays Dai girl. We got Park
Ubin who plays kyng He. Wegot Ceo Unsu who plays Joi Hyun.
We got Justin John Harvey who playsTom that's the South African who does have
some great moments and some great linesin this, and I actually really enjoy
his character. I guess part ofme maybe we could have brought them in
(27:41):
towards the tail end of the firstand then that way going into the second
one, I don't know. Again, I'm not I'm a fucking armchair critic.
So and I even hate the factthat I'm considered a critic because I
don't think I'm considered a critic.I'm just kind of telling you, hey,
this is why I like the thisis why I didn't fucking like the
film. Last, but not least, we got Jingu who plays Yam Doo
(28:06):
Yuan Do. We got music byMoge m owg. It was nice to
finally look up something on IMDb wherewe had more than three credits for an
Asian film. If you've listened anyof my podcasts before, between China is
the one where it's the worst,where you have this big production. In
(28:26):
fact, listen to my Actually Idon't know, I can't remember if I
mentioned it. I'm my most recentepisode Sakra starring Donnie En. If you
go to IMDb, apparently according toIMDb, like seven people worked on that
film, and if it's not Socra, it's definitely like where you're just like,
wait a minute, so there wasno production designers on this, There
is no you know, like,this doesn't make any sense. So anyway,
(28:48):
mog did the music and they've donemusic for I Saw the Devil,
which was fucking fantastic. If youhaven't seen that, I mean, it's
brutal, but it's a great film. The Age of Shadows, SI Lensed
a Company Man, which is ahuge Korean film, Unstoppable, Peninsula,
Cobweb, and of course The WitchPop One subversion. And then behind the
(29:11):
camera we got Young Ho Kim KimYoung Ho who's doing the cinematography for this,
and then our writer, director ParkHun Jung, who also wrote I
Saw the Devil The Tiger, whichI actually really enjoyed The Tiger way more
than I thought it was gonna be. Oot. It was gonna be so
stupid good stuff, New World andso much more. Check it out.
(29:34):
I definitely obviously watched the first one. And because and another thing too,
get excited about the idea of atrilogy. We don't, you know,
think of, statistically speaking, howmany more one offs we get in film
than we do building this this bigstoryline into an epic ending. We don't
(29:55):
get that very often. So fornothing else, watch it for that that
we get a big, big budgetKorean film that you get to see these
people exercise their skills. Because forthe most part this movie plays well,
I think the only reason I wasbogged down by it at well One.
You gotta understand I probably watch fifteennew movies a week, so I think
(30:17):
I watched this one like two weeksago, so I have seen a lot
in between. But nevertheless, stillworth your time. I promise you I
wouldn't fucking I wouldn't drag you outlistening to this fucking podcast for nothing.
Ellis Cinema, The Witch two theother one, Well Go USA presents another
(30:40):
good one. You can stream thison HIA TV Prime. You can get
the physical disc which is available now. The Witch to the other one Ellis
Cinema, We Go
All right, listen, I'm aback another a dish. How we doing
(01:26):
out there? Good? Great?Gray Yyan dy yan buke. Thank you
for joining the most unlistenable movie podcastthere is out there. So as you
see on your screen, your dial, however you're choosing to join me today,
I know the cast and crew ofthis film definitely appreciate you. Notice
how I did not say me theWitch two the other one. The Witch
(01:51):
two, the other one. Thisis a sequel to a movie I did
back well, It's Gotta Beat Shitthree years ago. At this point,
finally, the much hyped sequel hashit physical release and streaming, which you
can get right now as we're talkingthe Witch part well, the Witch two
(02:15):
colon the other one. It isdirected by Park Hun Jung, who did
New World and of course the firstinstallment, The Witch Subversion, and also
definitely features a stellar cast, includingnewcomer Shinsei Ya, the award winning Park
Upin who was in Stove League.Do you like Brahms. It's also got
(02:37):
Cio Unsu my Golden Life Kingmaker.We got Jingu from Mother If you haven't
seen that one, that's a wildone. Descendants of the Sun Sung Yu
Bin who was in the Battle Roadto Victory perhaps Love, as well as
Chi Minsu, Lee Jong Siok,and Kim Dami, who was in the
(03:00):
first one the protagonist in the firstone. I'm not really going to be
getting into part one. I'll justsay this is the second installment into a
very big Korean film that are verybig undertaking for this particular Korean film,
So a couple of things, notgonna trash it, not going to laud
(03:27):
over it. I have very mixedemotions about this one, and I kind
of knew going into it that weprobably weren't going to have necessarily the quality
of the first one, reason beingas the first one is actually packaged,
(03:49):
packaged and marketed by Warner Brothers.So you know, in the first one
you see that Warner Brothers logo comeacross the screen, You're like, oh
shit. You know they went andscooped out or scooped up the rights for
the which this witch series from theseKorean filmmakers, So it's they got money,
(04:09):
they got distribution, should be apretty big payout, or at least
a get audience audience members that maybeyou didn't have before just by having that
logo. Second one starts out andthere is no Warner Brothers logo, So
I don't know what happened kind ofin the interim, and I didn't I
(04:30):
didn't really feel like researching at onebecause you guys know, I don't really
research much. This is a showto get you to watch something. I'm
not necessarily selling you on it,just trying to give you my passion.
But I kind of knew by whathappened, you know. So And another
(04:51):
thing too, is it you know, me going forward with the research and
finding out whatever, whyever, thewhatever the reason was that Warner Brothers decided
to drop this movie, I don'tknow, and I don't care because it
doesn't matter for the most part.At play as well, there's there's a
couple moments where kind of like alot of Asian action films, where we
(05:15):
and I've mentioned it in shows previousthat you guys listened to before, just
we they they have a tough timegiving too much of a shit about their
CG effects. And you know,if you're an artist, you could make
the argument that it doesn't you know, want we don't have the money to
do this practical and this is avery big film, very science fiction,
(05:39):
e very thrillery, and I understandit from that point. So, you
know, if a filmmaker's just like, listen, did the sentiment come across,
because that's you know, if thestory's not coming across, I don't
really give a shit about what theeffects look like. And and I would
listen to that argument, like itshouldn't matter, Like if you can't pay
for you know, a fifteen milliondollar action car sequence or whatever the hell
(06:03):
it is, the story should beable to stand on its own. And
for the most part it does.It gets a little convoluted here and there,
but it's it's not you know,completely misunderstood or you know, between
the Honestly, it's the time jumping. Isn't what kind of messed with me.
(06:26):
It was kind of keeping track ofa bunch of characters that the way
that it's executed, we are meantto care one way or another, whether
you know, you want the characterto die or you want the character to
live. They present so many charactersin a very short period of time,
(06:46):
and I will give the film creditfor the most part, it's executed perfectly.
Like I am giving a shit aboutthe villains, I am caring a
little bit about our hero. Now, I if I'm being honest with myself
and to you guys, I caredmore about the protagonist in the first one
than I do this one. Butnevertheless, I mean between the acting,
(07:13):
some of the action pieces, andand it's emotional in this too, which
so don't think that I'm saying,oh, the first one is so much
better. It's just kind of Ithink sometimes critics out there are a little
too tough and not taking a stepback and looking at the situation, like
(07:33):
this movie wants to be in thesame stratosphere of big as, you know,
like a Marvel movie or something likethat. Now, it's much darker
than a Marvel movie, so obviouslyyou're going to eliminate some of your audience.
I believe both these films are ratedR, and that's just gonna happen.
(07:55):
Nature of the Beast, and andand just so we're clear, I
don't want it to be a piecefilm. I think you would lose some
of the intensity that this film brings. So you just got to got to
keep that in mind. I've reada couple of reviews from people online about
this one, and they're they're notsaying that it's bad, but you can
(08:16):
definitely tell like it wasn't considered likean absolute epic, which is what I
think the filmmakers were trying to do. I think in terms of the size
of it, it stands on itsown pretty well. I think where it
kind of buckles a little bit ismaybe shoehorning a character in here and there,
(08:41):
one that comes to mind who Iactually thought did a really good job
and one of the actors. Youkind of have a comedic duo, a
a almost a buddy duo between aKorean woman and a New Zealand I'm sorry,
South African man, South African,but the fact of the matter is
there's a way that you can implementthose two in there where it doesn't feel
(09:03):
forced upon you. And there arejust moments where those two, though they're
acting as good and they're nailing thelines that they're getting or facial expressions,
especially from the South African dude,that it plays really well. But I
almost feel like we're just inserting itin here so the film as a whole
doesn't come off as dark. Youknow, there's something more, there's something
(09:28):
more redeeming than just how the endkinds of kind of comes to a close
and Just so you guys know,it ain't end in part two, so
be on the lookout for Part three. No spoilers, I'm going to tell
you how we get there or whatyou do see at the end. But
this was always meant to be I'mpretty sure, if memory serves, this
(09:50):
was always meant to be a trilogy. Now, some of the parts where
I kind of felt we had areal opportunity to do something differ from the
first one. The fact of thematter is we just didn't it almost There
are moments, several moments throughout thisfilm, and again just so we're clear,
this is not me saying that thefilm's bad, not at all.
(10:11):
In fact, I'm one of thosepeople that I don't shit on pieces like
Marvel or Star Wars or anything fortrying to get that bag right, trying
to get that money. I don't. I don't shit on people like I
think something that resonated with me,which is kind of funny. Michael Bay.
It was either Michael Bay or JerryBruckheimer said it best. I'll stop
(10:31):
making these when you guys stop goingto see them. So the fact of
the matter is all the people thatbitch about transformers and bad boys and whatever
the fuck else. They wouldn't makethose films if you stop showing up to
go see them. So when youlook at it in the context of this
one like it. The first installmentwas highly anticipated, played really well,
(10:58):
and the second one they tried tojust take a lot of things. And
what you'll learn is we have twodifferent girls that are the protagonists of this.
They are both experiments, the experimentsmade to be killing machines. Okay,
so in fact, I can reada little bit of the synopsis in
this sequel to the famous Korean scifi In this sequel to the famous Korean
(11:24):
sci fi action thriller, The WitchSubversion, again, this is part two,
called the Other One. The storymoves away from a confined secret lab
and out into the real world aftera mysterious girl emerges as the sole survivor
of a bloody raid on the researchfacility behind the top secret Witch program.
(11:45):
I'm gonna say that again, soyou guys get a little SYNOPSI. After
a mysterious girl emerges this as thesole survivor of a bloody raid on the
research facility behind the top secret Witchprogram. She is rescued by a hair
of civilians who soon realize the girlis both mighty and in very grave danger.
(12:07):
However, as the assassins tasked withlocating and silencing the girl move ever
so Klausa, the lives of everyonearound her fall under increasingly great peril.
The most important thing anybody should knowin this one is that everybody wants to
kidnap or ally with Cynthia, whichis our new protagonist. I believe she's
(12:30):
called RC two or ARC one,that's her scientific name. Let me let
me double check for you. Hemmmin president arc one. So Cynthia is
just a name that she was given, but she is ark one, a
ark one, and so the mostimportant thing to know is everybody wants to
either kidnap or ally with Cynthia.Now, remember I said it gets a
(12:52):
kind of confusing, like in termsof how many characters are brought to light.
Well, listen to this kidnap orwith Cynthia, and they're all somehow
related to each other. Seriously,everybody in this film is somebody's ex partner,
ex sibling, or potential future partneror ex partner. The good news
(13:16):
is for the second screen viewer isyou don't need to did you Guys,
did I tell you about the termsecond screen viewer? This is this new
term that I just learned, andit drives me fucking nuts. I read
an article a week two weeks agothat's kind of shit on a TV show
one of the executives, and Ibelieve it was at Netflix. Don't quote
me on that, but I believeit was at Netflix where one of the
(13:39):
TV shows that they were doing.Some of the notes that those filmmakers of
that TV show got was it isnot second screen friendly enough, which means
that you need to not be sodetailed with the plot so that the person
watching the show on their second screen, because the first is their fucking cell
(14:03):
phone, the viewers might get confused. Is this what we're coming to?
Gang? You need to have yourphone. I don't understand, like you
watch movies and TV shows to getsomething out of it, to feel something,
right, I mean just in vagueblanket terms. Right. You know
(14:26):
you look at cat videos to behappy, blah blah blah. Well,
you sit down a movie for thesame shit. You sit down for the
movie, get through the story,and then you determine whether you like it
or not. This idea that youneed, like if you're bored, here's
a fucking idea. Turn it offand give something else a chance. Don't
fucking get twenty five percent out ofit because you were on your fucking phone.
(14:50):
That said the second screen. Thegood news for the second screen viewer
is that you don't need to keepa list of all all the relationships that
are going on here, because itdoes get kind of bogged down and a
little wordy and how all these peopleknow each other and what they want from
each other. So I'm not evengoing to deny that, but the fact
(15:13):
of the matter is you can fuckingtry, and you ain't gonna fucking know
if you got your goddamn phone out. Shit, why do I need it?
Why do you make me say thisshit to you people? Can you
tell I'm still fucking stewing about thatgoddamn article it, dude, it drives
me nuts, like no one's I'mnot this type of person that I used
to be, like say, tenyears ago, where it's like, oh,
fucking vine and TikTok and all thatother shit. Stupid Listen, however,
(15:35):
you get entertained, do your thing, but like you owe it to
whoever made that TikTok that fucking whateveryou watched on x or Instagram by lah
snore. You owe it to themto give them your undivided attention. I
don't understand why you can't just dothe same with movies, Like what,
just put your phone in another fuckingroom, like to me, And I'm
(15:56):
not even gonna sit here and tryto front with y'all like I do.
Sometimes I'm reaching for my phone inlulls in different movies. I just did
it with fucking Monkey Man, whichis a fine movie, but there's a
couple parts. Like you get tothe point where you've seen as many movies
as me and some of the otherpeople that do movie podcasts, you can
spot a beat from a mile away, a beat within the script, a
(16:18):
beat within the action, you knowwhatever. But I'm not gonna stand here
and tell you that I haven't triedto reach for my phone a couple of
times. Would you like a littlepro tip for yourself? Put your phone
in another fucking room, Because like, if I'm watching something at home,
and even if I start getting alittle bored by what I'm seeing, I
may reach in my pocket for myphone, But if it's another room,
(16:41):
I just give up. Like Imay reach for it once or twice throughout
a film that I'm watching that maynot be the most engaging, but the
fact of the matter is my phoneis in another fucking room, so I
end up providing my full attention,excuse me, to whatever we're watching.
So something to consider, gang don'tI don't know. I just assume you'd
(17:06):
turn something off. Well, yousee. I go back and forth on
that, because if you're twenty twominutes into a movie that you've never seen,
or if you're twenty two minutes intoa show that you just started,
I would argue there's no possible wayfor you to gauge if you're gonna like
it or not. And you knowthere's nuances to everything, like if you're
not a horror fan and you knowyour significant other like me, turns on
(17:30):
something that's just completely brutally violent,all right, well then move on to
the next one. If it's notyou, not your bag. But in
terms of like it, you knoweverybody should watch dramas, So in that
context, like, you're not gonnabe able to tell or have a good
idea of a fucking story if youwatch thirty one minutes of a French drama
(17:55):
from the fucking seventies. It's impossible. So I go back and forth on
that, But I'm also saying toyou, so I don't sound like such
a fucking fossil and old head.Just turn it the fuck off and find
something else, you know. Butthe main thing is get yourself out of
this headspace that you can be doingboth being on your phone and watching a
film. No, you can't notto fully engulf yourself in the piece that
(18:21):
you're watching. It's impossible. It'simpossible. I talk to my chick about
this all the time. Momentum,you know, you paw, You're an
hour and fifteen minutes into a twohour movie and you pause it and take
a fucking thirty minute break. Youdon't have the same momentum going into the
end of act two into act threethat you did if you just would have
stayed put. So you're actually doingyourself a disservice in terms of how you're
(18:42):
going to take in whatever media you'rewatching. Are we even talking about which
too anymore? Jesus Christ, whydo you This is why I said,
is most unlistenable podcast ever. Don'tknow how much longer I'm going to be
doing it, But you know whatever, I have obligations, and then after
I fulfill all eighty two of myobligations, I'm going to reassess on whether
(19:03):
or not I should continue fucking doingthis. But anyway, that's here nor
there. That's a long time off. So second screen viewer, it does
help to know that the wheelchair bounddoctor Beach who was in Part one,
Doctor Bajach, who was in Partone, she's got a little bit of
a cordial rivalry going on here.I'm not gonna tell you who if you
(19:26):
haven't seen part one, I'm notgoing to tell you what her character is
responsible for, nor her relationships withsome of the characters on here. But
like I said, you're gonna haveif you are going to be interested and
see this. Whether you you knowyou like a couple of the pictures that
I posted on it, I urgeyou to go back and watch the first
one, which I believe is onPrime right now and High TV maybe even
(19:47):
two. B. I gotta tellyou just a little side note to B
is getting some awesome selections. Justthrowing that out there. But so this
is gonna be more Part two centric. Anyway, Doctor the Bayak has a
cordial rivalry with Jang who I mentionedearlier, and they are both looking for
Ja Yun after the events of whichthe Which part one. So that's Ja
(20:11):
Yun, who is the protagonist fromthe first one. But we may have
ourselves another problem because it looks likesome other chick is ready to fucking find
responsible, find the people responsible foressentially stealing her childhood. But much of
the Which Part two concerns the confluenceof the captors that surrounds Cynthia, and
(20:37):
there's also a decent sized B storyinvolving Kihung Yi and Daigil, who are
already embroiled in this Western style plotto protect their dead dad's land from murderous
uncle Jungdo played by Jingu, butalso plots come back to Cynthia, a
(20:59):
blessedly un complicated character with no pastand a striking resemblance to our protagonists from
the first one, Ja June,so a lot to like throughout here.
There are several scenes that you knowif you listen to the show. I
mentioned it all the time. There'sa way that Asian filmmakers conduct the choreography
(21:25):
of a for a fight scene thatwe just don't do very often here and
it's very prevalent in this They areSouth Korea, I would argue as making
probably the best overall films in thepast decade, or at least up there,
and it shows in this one.They have an eye that sometimes you
just don't or for most of thetime, you just don't see with American
(21:48):
filmmakers. So it's really fun tokind of see, Like the bus sequence
that happens in the beginning, theway that it's done is really good.
A couple of the sequences towards theend I thought were really good in terms
of how it's presented to us,whether when the score hits when it's supposed
(22:08):
to the effects. You know,there's several times throughout this where one thing
that I will say that Asian filmmakersdo, like I rip on the quality
of CG A lot I do,but I will say they use it.
You can tell where they spend theirmoney. And I don't mean that in
(22:29):
a negative way, like there arecertain things that you're like, oh,
that was a little rocky, butthen they save the money for let's say,
some of the end sequences that I'mnot going to spoil here and there
where the movie falls just a littleshort in comparison to the first. Is
(22:49):
it has heart in this fell I'mnot even going to pretend that it doesn't,
but like the first one, justnot to me, it doesn't.
I feel like I heard more forour protagonists in The Which Part one than
I did Part two. I'm justgonna be honest with you, and I
understand that the way that they're shapingit, ultimately we're gonna care about both
(23:14):
of them heading into the third whenall the fucking shit ass villains meet there,
tomize, but we're not there yet, So I just got to call
a spade a spade. I feelwe sacrificed, and all action films do
this, not just The Which theWhich Part two. Sometimes we will sacrifice
(23:36):
plot for action sequences. Most notablethat I can think of in recent memory
that just absolutely fucking annoyed the shitout of me was Aquaman, the first
one. I haven't watched the secondone yet, who knows when I'll get
around to that, but definitely thefirst one. I felt like every time
we were about to have a goodmoment, a good emotional moment, it
(24:00):
is derailed by explosions and action piecesand blah blah blah and I found myself
thinking that a couple times within thisone, even though I prefer the action
that I'm seeing in this one thanI do then I do Aquaman. But
nevertheless, that flaw is still therewhere There's several times where I'm like,
oh, fuck, man, Iwant to care. I want to care,
(24:22):
Like there's a scene with it.I'll just say an uncle an arc
one, and I wanted to caremore about those two in the moment than
I did. Whereas I want tosay, the last third of this movie,
I just kind of wanted it toend so we could get to the
(24:45):
third one. Like I felt likeI had seen all I needed to see
for Cynthia's character, it wasn't nearas flashed out, fleshed out as the
girl from the first one. Andit's I feel like we were kind of
limping into the third installment. Andthat's coming off the heels of me saying
(25:06):
that I think that they put theirmoney in the right places for Act three.
I really do believe that. Butyou can only do so much with
so many characters within a film.It's a hell of a lot easier to
do let's say, a Game ofThrones or a Lord of the Rings where
you I'm sorry, Game of Thrones, where you have all these characters,
(25:27):
you can stretch that into a TVshow. I think very rarely do we
see an occurrence like Lord of theRings with the extended edition, where we
have all these characters, but thatextra hour and twenty minutes per film really
plays dividends. But if you thinkback, there's not a whole lot where
it's successful if you have fucking tento fifteen characters right and trying to get
(25:55):
everybody their moment. Like I goback to the example that I said at
the time of the show between theKorean and South African that are looking for
Cynthia, Like, I know thatI'm meant to care about these characters in
some form, whether they're good orevil, but I don't, you know,
like I feel like, man,you know what this You want to
(26:15):
know what I felt about that thecouple and again not saying anything bad about
their performance. I thought their performancewas good. In fact, the comedy
actually works, but it does feellike it's kind of shoved down my throat
in a way where it's just like, yeah, the first one was pretty
dark, right, Let's have somecomedy, you know, let's hate some
(26:36):
comedy, but I mean, itis what it is. You can't it's
it's teeters On fucking impossible. Bythe way, the I've been saying that
the character's name is Cynthia the wholetime. That's actually the actress's name.
I do apologize. Her name inthis is actually just girl or arc one.
(26:57):
Cynthia is the name of the actresswho who plays the girl. So
we got Cynthia playing the girl.We got Joe Minsou who plays doctor Bayak.
We got Kim Dummy who plays KuJuan Yun or Ja Yun Ku,
which was for the first one,but you don't. I'm not going to
ruin anything, but we'll just sayshe makes an appearance, right gang we
(27:18):
got. We got Sung yu binwho plays Dai girl. We got Park
Ubin who plays kyng He. Wegot Ceo Unsu who plays Joi Hyun.
We got Justin John Harvey who playsTom that's the South African who does have
some great moments and some great linesin this, and I actually really enjoy
his character. I guess part ofme maybe we could have brought them in
(27:41):
towards the tail end of the firstand then that way going into the second
one, I don't know. Again, I'm not I'm a fucking armchair critic.
So and I even hate the factthat I'm considered a critic because I
don't think I'm considered a critic.I'm just kind of telling you, hey,
this is why I like the thisis why I didn't fucking like the
film. Last, but not least, we got Jingu who plays Yam Doo
(28:06):
Yuan Do. We got music byMoge m owg. It was nice to
finally look up something on IMDb wherewe had more than three credits for an
Asian film. If you've listened anyof my podcasts before, between China is
the one where it's the worst,where you have this big production. In
(28:26):
fact, listen to my Actually Idon't know, I can't remember if I
mentioned it. I'm my most recentepisode Sakra starring Donnie En. If you
go to IMDb, apparently according toIMDb, like seven people worked on that
film, and if it's not Socra, it's definitely like where you're just like,
wait a minute, so there wasno production designers on this, There
is no you know, like,this doesn't make any sense. So anyway,
(28:48):
mog did the music and they've donemusic for I Saw the Devil,
which was fucking fantastic. If youhaven't seen that, I mean, it's
brutal, but it's a great film. The Age of Shadows, SI Lensed
a Company Man, which is ahuge Korean film, Unstoppable, Peninsula,
Cobweb, and of course The WitchPop One subversion. And then behind the
(29:11):
camera we got Young Ho Kim KimYoung Ho who's doing the cinematography for this,
and then our writer, director ParkHun Jung, who also wrote I
Saw the Devil The Tiger, whichI actually really enjoyed The Tiger way more
than I thought it was gonna be. Oot. It was gonna be so
stupid good stuff, New World andso much more. Check it out.
(29:34):
I definitely obviously watched the first one. And because and another thing too,
get excited about the idea of atrilogy. We don't, you know,
think of, statistically speaking, howmany more one offs we get in film
than we do building this this bigstoryline into an epic ending. We don't
(29:55):
get that very often. So fornothing else, watch it for that that
we get a big, big budgetKorean film that you get to see these
people exercise their skills. Because forthe most part this movie plays well,
I think the only reason I wasbogged down by it at well One.
You gotta understand I probably watch fifteennew movies a week, so I think
(30:17):
I watched this one like two weeksago, so I have seen a lot
in between. But nevertheless, stillworth your time. I promise you I
wouldn't fucking I wouldn't drag you outlistening to this fucking podcast for nothing.
Ellis Cinema, The Witch two theother one, Well Go USA presents another
(30:40):
good one. You can stream thison HIA TV Prime. You can get
the physical disc which is available now. The Witch to the other one Ellis
Cinema, We Go
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