Justin's Log

The Witch: Part 2. The Other One (2022) movie poster. Source: NEW. Used for review and commentary purposes. The Witch: Part 2. The Other One (2022) does not simply try to recreate the mystery that made the first film memorable. Director Park Hoon-jung takes a different approach, introducing a new central character while revealing more of the forces surrounding the experiments and extraordinary abilities established in The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion . Shin Si-ah takes the lead as a mysterious young girl who enters the outside world after escaping from a secret research facility. Her journey eventually brings her into the lives of Kyung-hee, played by Park Eun-bin, and her younger brother Dae-gil, giving the film a quieter human center beneath its science-fiction story. What interests me most abou...

The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion (2018) movie poster. Source: Warner Bros. Korea. Used for review and commentary purposes. Park Hoon-jung's The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion (2018) begins with an ordinary life and gradually introduces the feeling that something is not quite right. At first, the movie seems to follow the quiet daily life of a teenage girl, but questions surrounding her past slowly begin to emerge. The film does not explain everything immediately. Instead, it allows the audience to follow Ja-yoon while sharing some of her uncertainty. As the story develops, the familiar atmosphere gradually becomes darker and more threatening. Kim Da-mi plays Ja-yoon, a high school student living with her adoptive parents in the countryside. On the surface, her concerns seem ordinary: family, sc...

The King's Warden (2026) movie poster. Used for review and commentary purposes. Historical dramas often introduce kings through political power, royal conflict, and the decisions that shaped history. The King's Warden ( 왕과 사는 남자 , 2026), directed by Jang Hang-jun, takes a more intimate approach. Instead of treating King Danjong only as a historical figure, the film brings the audience closer to the human being behind the royal title. At the center of the story is the relationship between the exiled young king and Eom Heung-do, an ordinary village leader played by Yu Hae-jin. Their social positions could hardly be more different, yet the film gradually narrows that distance through everyday interaction rather than overwhelming the story with complicated court politics. That smaller perspecti...

Colony (2026) official movie poster. Source: Showbox. Used for review and commentary purposes. What happens when the enemy does not stay the same long enough for you to learn how to fight it? That is one of the ideas that makes Colony ( Gunche ) so frightening. Director Yeon Sang-ho once again takes an outbreak story and turns it into something more than people simply running away from zombies. The infected are dangerous, but the real nightmare is that the survivors cannot be completely sure what they will become next. The movie also has another major advantage: its cast. Gianna Jun, Koo Kyo-hwan, Ji Chang-wook, Shin Hyun-been, Kim Shin-rock, and Go Soo are all familiar faces who could easily carry important roles on their own. When a survival movie brings together this many recognizable actors, it...

Peninsula (2020) movie poster. Used for review and commentary purposes. Following a movie as successful as Train to Busan was never going to be easy. The 2016 film created tension through confinement: a moving train, narrow aisles, closed doors, and very limited places to escape. When director Yeon Sang-ho returned to the same outbreak-ravaged world with Peninsula in 2020, he chose not to simply repeat that formula. Instead, Peninsula dramatically expands the scale. The cramped train carriages are replaced by abandoned roads, ruined buildings, dark cityscapes, vehicles, and much larger action sequences. The result feels less like traditional survival horror and more like a post-apocalyptic action movie. I think the movie works best when it is approached on those terms. It shares a world with Trai...