Black Hand (DVD) (Korea Version) DVD Region 3

Han Go Eun (Miss Mama Mia) plays the victim in question, a doctor called Yoo Gyeong, whose hand is severed after a shocking accident. Luckily for Yoo, her married boyfriend Jung Woo (Kim Sung Soo, Soar into the Sun) is a skilled neurosurgeon himself, and he manages to reattach the hand, much to the annoyance of his wife and the hospital's owner (Shin Jeong Seon, Romantic Warriors), who turns out to be only too aware of their illicit affair. Though happy to have her hand back, Yoo's life is soon in turmoil as she starts experiencing strange visions and threatening events, and when her visually impaired sister (Bae Geu Rin, Hold my Hand) is pulled into the escalating evil as well she's pushed to try and get to the bottom of things.

There's clearly nothing new with the premise of Black Hand, and indeed it doesm't stray too far from the well-trodden path, using the mystery of the hand and the past crimes linked to the surgery and the accident for the usual investigations and revelations. This having been said, the film is somewhat murkier than most, holding back most of its secrets until the end and with Park Jae Sik having a rather odd way of pulling skeletons from their closets. While the film ultimately doesn't make much sense, its vagueness never feels needlessly obtuse, and the soap opera style character relationships and interactions help to keep things interesting, if never particularly believable. It's all pretty basic stuff, though unpretentious and reasonably fun, and a few nasty turns and a general air of meanness at least partly compensates for the lack of emotional investment in the sketchy characters.

The film similarly scores fairly well when it comes to the fear factor, Park successfully combining creepy atmospherics with a few flashes of gore and nastiness, making the most of the naturally unnerving hospital setting and throwing in some convincing scenes of bloody surgery. Again, there's nothing even remotely original with the ways in which the scares are orchestrated, though for the most part the sudden shocks hit their mark, and the film does have a few effective moments scattered throughout, enough so to keep genre fans happy, if scarcely on the edge of their seats. Park's direction is generally competent, despite feeling a bit made for television at times, and the film is definitely better suited to small screen viewing, lacking any real kind of cinematic scope and at its best when sneaking around the dark, shadowy corridors of the hospital.

Without wishing to damn with faint praise, Black Hand is a perfectly acceptable hospital horror, which entertains without particularly impressing. Demonstrating a solid grasp of genre mechanics throughout, it should be enjoyed by anyone who finds the premise promising, and offers an occasionally effective hour and a half of medical menace.

by James Mudge - EasternKicks.com