The Fox Family
Kudos for the release, but this Korean black comedy musical falls, well, a bit flat. Literally…
Nowadays, when a relatively new DVD distribution label comes along I feel like I should support everything they put out there. Hell, there’s a lot going awry in the industry right now, times are tough with all you naughty downloaders out there, downloading movies, not paying for them, not going to the cinema anymore, etc.
So along come Terracotta Distribution, who already have a couple of really worthy efforts under their belt with Yim Phil-Sung’s Hansel And Gretel and Singing Chen’s God Man Dog, not to mention an annual festival, and they drop this on us…
Ah, no don’t get me wrong… By now you’ll be thinking this film is terrible, which it simply isn’t. But it’s also not – as the distributors may try to persuade us – on a par with Takeshi Miike’s Happiness Of The Katakuris or The Rocky Horror Show. Which makes this all a little tricky…
Meet the Fox Family. Outwardly a travelling circus troupe, they are in fact just that, a family of fox spirits waiting for the chance to permanently become humans – a rare opportunity that comes once every thousand years, as long as they eat a human liver that night. So the race is on to find some unwitting volunteers.
Unfortunately macabre murders left behind by a serial killer are putting the family in the limelight of a police investigation. Will they be successful in their quest to become human…?
Part fable, part musical, part black comedy, but mainly little of anything, The Fox Family is a victim of never successfully bringing these strands together. The tone is messy, but really the problem is it never truly takes itself far enough down one line or another. The fantasy elements could be made stronger, the humour is a little too juvenile, often dropping into dead end parody skits, and honestly, the songs are lame. Away from the immediate novelty of the cast breaking into song – which frankly doesn’t last long as they’re so prominently flagged up – there’s little left to stick in your brain. It lacks the baffling unpredictability of the aforementioned Happiness Of The Katakuris. (And no, the songs aren’t a patch on Katakuris’ either.)
Occasional glints shine through when the film is at it’s most abstract, like when a standoff between police and protesters turns in to a break dancing standoff. But even this only underlines the films problem, having no relevance the plot whatsoever. Which is a shame as the cast, including Ha Jung-woo (Like You Know It All), former Miss Korea, Park Si-hyeon (Marine Boy), Ju Hyeon (A Love) and Ko Ju-yeon (Epitaph, My Wife Is A Gangster), do a pretty fine job with what they have to work with. It’s well shot too, but the cinematography is definite more solid than inspiring.
So what am I trying to say? Okay film, but don’t hold this against Terracota – give the guys a chance as I’m sure they have plenty more interesting releases in store for us…
DVD details
Distributor:Terracota Distribution (UK)
A very minimal DVD release that does nothing for this film. It doesn't even contain a trailer for the movie itself, let alone bonus features!
