You don’t want to observe the bloody/angsty Korean superhero/horror hybrid “The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion” if you happen to be solely interested in its sequel, “The Witch: Part 2. The Other One.” Each “The Witch” motion picture borrows sufficient of the fashion and tropes of widespread American style motion pictures that every one it’s essential to learn about “Part 1” is that it’s mainly a Korean model of Stephen King’s “Firestarter,” solely bloodier and now extra like an “X-Men” superhero journey.
“Part 2” is an extra of that story—Goo Ja-Yoon (Kim Da-mi), a mysterious younger woman with super-powers, escapes a shady prison-like science lab after which tries to evade a bunch of people that come in search of her—however with a special younger protagonist, Cynthia (Shin Si-ah). Neither woman can bear in mind their pre-lab previous, however, they each develop new attachments with numerous aspect characters.
There’s a whole lot of bloodshed in each motion picture, some rubbery-looking laptop graphics mayhem, and a surplus of swearing. That’s all a part of these style hybrids’ attraction: like among the higher American superhero motion pictures and TV exhibits, “The Witch: Part 1” and its sequel really feel like they’re truly attempting to attraction to an audience of teenage boys and ladies. I imply, sure, there are a number of feminine leads, however extra importantly, these characters get to do extra than simply act out the standard pseudo-empowering revanchist fantasies that go for bubblegum feminism. “The Witch: Part 2. The Other One” could also be lumpier and extra unfocused than its predecessor, but it surely does not rehash what got here earlier than it.
An excellent part of what makes “The Witch: Part 2. The Other One” satisfying is that it’s a sequel and subsequently a part of a prefabricated narrative and style. There’s a whole lot of welcome teenage and teenage-friendly melodrama right here and it’s not all the time what you may count on. Even Cynthia, a clone who was initially named ADP (Ark 1 Datum Level), finds a bit of potential for love after she escapes the Ark lab facility and stumbles into Kyung-hee (Park Eun-bin) and her oafish brother Dae-Gil (Sung Yoo-bin). It’s principally solely potential since “Part 2” appears like an excessively elaborate bridge between “Part 1” and an inevitable “Part 3.”
Nonetheless, it’s refreshing to see flirtation and even buddy comedy chemistry as the muse for a lot of this film’s crisscrossing relationships, together with the better-developed of the 2 pairs of mercenaries that chase after Cynthia, the whiskey-and-swears tomboy Jo-Hyeon (Website positioning Eun-soo) and her South African beardo accomplice (Justin John Harvey). There’s additionally a brother-sister pair of Shanghainese killers which can be unleashed on Cynthia by a special shadowy group. However an important factor to know right here is: that everyone needs to both kidnap or ally with Cynthia, they usually’re all by some means associated with one another.
No, critically, everyone in this film is an individual’s ex-partner, sibling, or potential future accomplice. The excellent news for the idly curious viewer is: that you don’t must preserve an in-depth scorecard of those connections. It definitely helps to know that the wheelchair-bound Physician Baek (Jo Min-Su) has a cordial rivalry with Jang (Lee Jong-suk) and that they’re each nonetheless in search of Ja-Yoon after the occasions of “The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion.” However a lot of “The Witch: Part 2. The Other One” considers the confluence of overlapping minders and captors that encompass Cynthia. There’s additionally a decent-sized B-story involving Kyung-hee and Dae-Gil, who is already embroiled in a western-style plot to guard their useless dad’s land against murderous uncle Yong-du (Jin Goo). However, all sub-plots come again to Cynthia, a blessedly uncomplicated character with no previous and a hanging resemblance to Ja-Yoon.
Some blood-soaked and maybe overly busy motion scenes counsel that the makers of “The Witch: Part 2. The Other One” nonetheless don’t know learn how to synthesize their overstuffed seize bag of pulpy tropes and inventory characters. Even Harvey’s character factors out (repeatedly) that Jo-Hyeon curses loads, although that isn’t so unusual given what number of latest American super-shows have leaned into gore and four-letter phrases to ascertain their adolescent bonafide. “The Witch: Part 2. The Other One” appears like a soapier different to this sequence, proper right down to its convoluted backstories and slow-fast-slow tempo. This film is 137 minutes lengthy and undoubtedly feels prefer it.
“The Witch: Part 2. The Other One” resembles the kind of film that you just used to search out within the fifth or sixth auditorium of your native second-run movie show in the useless middle of a triple-digit summertime. Or perhaps it’s extra just like the shaggy canine super-movies that proliferated within the Nineteen Nineties, again when American film studios didn’t know to learn how to persistently lure normal audiences with super-stories. I’m undecided about the place this explicit wannabe franchise goes or if anyone however initiated viewers will care to search out out, however, I might watch one other one.