South Korean thrillers are always a win. Their cinematic landscape never failed to amaze the audiences with their takes on thriller movies and ‘Recalled’ is one of them. Watching this movie which is full of unpredictable twists will make you say. "I didn’t see that coming!"
Released with a hit, the mystery thriller movie ‘Recalled’ is about a woman named Soo-Jin (Seo Ye Ji) who wakes up one day in a hospital and learns that she’s lost her memory in an accident. With the help of her caring husband Ji-Hoon (Kim Kang-Woo) she tries to restart her life slowly. He protects her at all costs, attempting to carefully restore her memories bit by bit and reintegrate her into society. But still, things feel like they are not as they seem. Everything goes well for a while after being discharged from the hospital.
One day Soo Jin meets a child in an elevator and foresees that the child is about to get hit by a truck. At first, she thinks that she was going through hallucinations but still eventually follows the child to ensure the kid’s safety but she learns that she was seeing the future. Even though she tells everyone about it, nobody believes her. Soo-Jin becomes unstable and her husband does whatever he can do to calm her down, but the flashes of the future continue.
Meanwhile, in the following days, Soo-Jin happens to meet her former colleague. Her colleague confuses her with stories about her and her husband that conflicts with those that Ji-Hoon had been telling her. Ji-Hoon seems to harbour secrets beneath his initially caring exterior. With her not being able to remember her past, and her learning of new things of the present and her life prior to the accident, Soo-Jin starts to unravel mysterious truths about her life.
‘Recalled’ is an occasionally breathless, repeatedly engaging psychological thriller. Hitting all the right notes when needed, it never fails to grab attention, and as a result is likely to be remembered for a long time. The film banked on its strengths to deliver a complicated story. It contains multiple layers of mystery that get stripped back at opportune moments It was patient and took its time to peel out the layers that made the story so compelling and strong for its entire 1hour and 39 minutes runtime. The twists did not seem forced and it made complete sense. The intensity of the acting, the cinematography, and the background music made the mystery so much more engaging. Even if you’ve watched a lot of mystery thriller Korean movies, you probably won’t be able to predict how ‘Recalled’ ends.
Main cast Seo Ye Ji’s acting as Soo-Jin was outstanding. She portrayed Soo- Jin’s doubtful, distressing emotions throughout each scene as she seeks to get to the bottom of her past and present. Her strong use of facial expressions and ability to give her character a grounded, but vulnerable, depth was just extraordinary. Ye Ji and the audience untangles this mess together and you can feel every emotion that she goes through with her. She’s acted wonderfully as the woman who has almost lost it all but never comes across as the damsel in distress. Seo Yea Ji is a gem to watch on screen, be it a Korean Drama or a Korean Movie. This being a movie with minimal casting, we see Seo Yea Ji in her prime as she emulsifies into the psyche of Soo Jin.
Apart from her, Kim Kang-Woo is equally wonderful. As you learn more about him, your views about everything start to change and by the end of the film, you shed a few tears for him too. In this mystery-thriller – if Seo Yea Ji creates the thrills, Kim Kang Woo creates the mystery. It is eerie watching him go from a doting husband to an intimidating aggressor. Despite having a few other characters these two main leads, kept passing the baton of spotlight amongst each other. The two leads together are absolutely flawless and do a wonderful job at grounding you and helping you to immerse yourself in the story. This is a film without much budget but the casting was perfect. Both actors brought depth to characters who would be otherwise dismissed easily.
The director and writer, SeoYoo-Min, (the same screenwriter of April Snow and Happiness) created this masterpiece that stays with you even after you have completed watching it. Even though this was her first-ever directed movie she did an impressive job. With complicated crime aspects including its jumping back and forth concept and solid logic, she served the human drama aspect very well. The exploration of the complex relationship between the two main characters with such sensitivity and heart was flawless too.
For all crime thrillers to succeed, the revelation should be delivered with such meticulous skill in order for the twist to work in which director SeoYoo-Min did very marvelously.
Originally, the movie was released on 21 April 2021, where on the first day of its release, it surpassed all the records and ranked at first place in the Korean box office. It sold over 18,000 tickets on opening day to take the No. 1 post. It earned $121,331, which is 28 percent of the revenues of all films screened on that day.As of 19 July, it’s in the 18th position and the movie almost grossed out US$2,634,111 with a total 333,019 admissions according to KOFIC (Korean Film Council). It also got 6.9 ratings in Imdb and about 95% google users liked this film with a rating of 4.9 out of 5. You will like this film too.
All in all, ‘Recalled’ keeps audiences engaged on their toes from the start to finish with its twists. It is a great film to watch. Beautiful, tragic, miserable but executed totally flawlessly.
* Rumaiysa M Rahman is a 10th grader at Viqarunnisa Noon School and College, Dhaka