It's a bit like the Korean version of "Gone Lover". The two films are of similar quality, except that David Fincher's images are more precise and calm, and Li Cangdong's pictures are more freehand and natural.
After reading Murakami's novels, I feel that the film captures many of the essence of the novels, but the temperament is still very different: Murakami's novels still have a sense of daze in the city, and they are light and gloomy, with a feeling of being stripped of reality; Li Cangdong's films In essence, it is still a very typical "Korean movie", with stronger intensity and more realistic orientation (such as the father's lawsuit, Trump on TV, the opposite Chaoxian radio, etc.).
The second half of the film highlights the suspenseful atmosphere that the novel does not have, with excellent soundtrack and sound effects to highlight the inner sense of horror, and at the end it creates a double ending that is both true and illusory. It's psychedelic and suspenseful - but I personally like the ending where Steven Yeon puts on his girlfriend's lipstick, which would be more abrupt. Now the ending still feels a little too hard, it's too Korean movie!
The dance of the sunset is of course beautiful. The flying leaves section is more floating than the novel, but my favorite scene is the one where I put on lipstick. It feels like listening to thunder in a silent place, with darkness and weirdness in the beauty. A few erotic scenes are great, but the car chase is really weak. The car burning scene at the end, placed so close to the road, is too easy to be discovered... I wonder if it was designed on purpose to highlight both the real and the illusion.
The big difference from the novel is that the movie lowers the class of the male protagonist and focuses on the environment at the bottom of South Korea. The protagonist in the novel is still very Murakami's setting: no matter how good the middle age is, there is nothing missing but a boring man. He kept drinking beer and listening to music, and if he had nowhere to go on a date with a girl... In the movie, Yoo Ah-in looks very Korean. He looks a little naive on the surface, and there is a kind of repressed energy waiting to be released. The class contrast in the movie is basically absent in the novel, or it is not emphasized (some people say that the three protagonists are three classes, but they disagree, obviously they are high and low).
Many people bring the interpretation of the movie back to the analysis of the novel. I think it is a bit ridiculous to say that the novel is a story of a perverted murderer. Murakami is not Chuck Palahniuk, how can he be so scary. After reading Murakami's novels such as "The Bakery Again", you will feel that Murakami is describing the absurdity of the city and the emptiness of people. The burning of the barn is basically a metaphor (not a clue to a murder case), about the inner emptiness and inexplicable desire for destruction of the wealthy urban population, but the disappearance of the girl is not necessarily related to this. Many of Murakami's novels have plots where girls leave or disappear inexplicably. It is often a correspondence of the hero's frozen life, which may symbolize the rupture of communication, the departure of beauty, and the instability of existence... It must be said to be murder and burning the body It's so real, it's quite a bit of buying back pearls.
It's more clear in the movie, which is why I don't think the movie has reached its perfection yet. The second half is still a little too hard and too practical, and it lacks the mysterious flavor of the original philosophy.
The performance of the new female supporting role is already amazing, but the two male protagonists are actually not that outstanding. Liu Yaren's role can be seen in many Korean movies, and it is very good, but it is not very outstanding.
Finally, possibly involving spoilers -
Personally, I prefer the fantasy that the ending is created by the male protagonist. This ending is more interesting, and it is more or less close to the original feeling of Murakami.
In addition, I don't think this is a movie that perfectly interprets Murakami's style.
View more about Burning reviews
