Alice: Boy from wonderland

Movie: Alice: Boy from Wonderland
Romanization: Aerriseu: Wondeoraendeueoseo On Sonyeon
Hangul: 앨리스: 원더랜드에서 온 소년
Director: Huh Eun-Hee
Writer: Huh Eun-Hee
Producer: Choi Yoon, Choi Wook
Cinematographer: Kim Hak-Bae
World Premiere: July, 2015 (BiFan)
Release Date: 10th of december, 2015
Runtime: 1h50
Genre: Romance / Mistery / Horror
Language: Korean
Country: South Korean

After watching this movie twice I guess I'm ready to make a review about it.

-Synopsis-
This movie portrays a story about a girl, Hye Jung (actress - Jung So Min ) who has nightmares every night and that starts to threaten her life since she can't distinguish what's real from what's a dream. As a solution, she travels to "Wonderland", a private resort, where a boy, Hwan (Hong Jong Hyun ) is waiting for her. Whithin 15 days, she has to find what she lost so that her nightmares will disappear. If she can't, she will have to face the consequences.

Well ... this movie is not for every kind of taste.
What made me watch was, first of all, the cast.
The actor, Hong Jong Hyun, was in "Moon Lovers" cast. His role is different than the one he made in "Moon Lovers" so I wanted to see how he would do it in "Alice: Boy from Wonderland". It was surprising because it was impossible not to like him.
I loved his character, Hwan: Handsome, cute, caring ...
About the girl, Hye Jung, (whose actress entered the recent drama "My father is Strange") her role was a bit lacking. She needed more personality strengt but i guess it's understandable because she lived near death because of her nightmares. Anyway, I think she could have a brighter character.
The rest of the characters were not a big deal except the Shaman. She was very funny and helps the drama having a little bit of "non-dark" stuff.

The story is very complicated and you need to pay attention to the little details. Nothing is said just because yes. However, just in the end of the movie you'll have the explanaition. For that reason, I believe that most of you will give up watching because it'll be hard to understand but i trully recommend you to keep going. The end will be worth it and everything will make sense (or almost everything).
This movie is very supernatural, full of blood and some jump scares. (just a little, I personally didn't feel scared). I found the plot very disturbing when I understood it.
It was very surprising (in a good or bad way? that's up to you to decide) and one of the things that i found more surprising of all was that i found myself wanting to cry in a horror movie! Let's be honest... if you want to cry in horror movies it's because you're scared to death but in this one was because it messed up my feelings.

Since it's a movie, it's normal that you may feel that the story is going too fast. About an hour it's not enough to make a plot going slowly. However, i think it was amazing, because if you're focused you'll notice some hints about the relationship of the characters.
The worst part will be trying to realize what's dream from what's reality (even the character can't) so you'll have a hard time. Don't try to guess what's going to happen next, it will make you even more confused.
One more thing that i disliked was not being able to find good subtitles. It was even harder to understand (especially for people who don't speak not even a little of korean) but that is not the movie fault.


You can watch: Fastdrama , Kissasian
Score: 8.5/10
Reason: I couldn't understand 100% of the story. The main female character was lacking in terms of personality. The relationship between characters was very confusing.





Now for people who already watched it and need an explanation.






SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

 |
 |
 |
\ /

Explanation.

SPOILERS ABOUT THE WHOLE STORY!

As you could see, the girl had some issues with her nightmares, being harder for her to understand what was reality and what was dreams. So she goes to Wonderland to discover what she lost (her memories.)
About that resort I have 2 theories: it's a dream or it's the line that divides death and life.
In my opinion, I think it's the place where dead people stay when they still have something to do.
Anyway, that's not the most important part to understand the story.

Plot:
When she was young (4 years old i guess), Hye Jung saw the housekeeper Soo Ryeon accidentally cutting herself while cutting vegetables. She asked if Soo Ryeon was ok, if she was hurt, but Soo Ryeon answered that she was ok since it was done for the ones she loved (it means: she was preparing food for the people she loved so it was ok). Because she was just a kid she understood that it was really ok, that didn't hurt and it was like a proof that she loved them. Hye Jung wanted to show that she loved Hwan too so she grabbed the knife and went to the baby's room. She explains to him that it's a game for the loved ones and first stab the plush rabbit Myodori because she loved it and then she made a cut in Hwan's the face. Since the baby didn't cry she tought it was really ok (this is my opinion) and keep going because she really tought the more she stabbed him the more she would be showing her love. He bleed to death and she layed down by his side thinking he was sleeping.
Her mother saw it and didn't say anything because she didn't want to traumatize the child. Hye Jung didn't know that she had just killed Hwan and that he wouldn't wake up.
After that, her grandmother closed the door of that room and glued some kind of talisman that would make everyone forget what happend there.
Since no one remembers him, he kept growing up in Wonderland like he was alive (that's why i think it's a place where dead people stay when they aren't ready to go to after life).
If she remembered him until 03/28, before he completed his 24 years old, I assumed that he would come back to life (in the movie they said that he wouldn't die but he was already dead so i think it's that.) However, she couldn't. When she remembered him it was already too late and she had to open the talisman that Shaman gave her so she could go back to life. If she didn't open the talisman she would die. So Hwan open the talisman for her and push her back to her world/life.


Hye Jung e Hwan:
I think the boy is half-brother of hers since her father had an affair with the housekeeper Soo Ryeon. (Hye Jung even saw them doing it when she was little) so I believe she wasn't already pregnant when she went there for working. And Hye Jung's mother push Soo Ryeon proving that she already knew about the affair.
Besides that, the boy plays the guitar (like her father) and draws (like her father) so I think it was little hints that he was her half-brother.
The fact that the father wrote "Her son is born" instead of "Our son is born" i think it was because it was an affair anyway. I don't think he would be proud to say "our" since it was an affair.
I know it's really hard to accept that because they had a relationship but... he was dead... so it's not a big deal.
The fact thar he developt feeling in baby... it's not like that... Hye Jung was the only person he ever met during his short life. Despite all of that, the kid's love is the most pure and sincere one so i think it was that what the writer tried to tell us. That pure and sincere feeling become bigger and transformed into love, a more adult form of love but still sincere and pure like when they were kids.
Hwan remembers her because he's not a baby anymore and the world he lives is not a world where the rationality can explain anything. Like in Alice in Wonderland, her world is impossible to explain.
However, since it's not very well explained if they were brother I'm not very sure about it. In the bottom of my heart i really wished they weren't related. But i don't know...

Soo Ryeon
The housekeeper that was going to help the family because Hye Jung's mother was sick fell in love with Hye Jung's father. They had an affair and they had sex (Hye Jung saw) and Soo Ryeon got pregnant. After that, she had the baby and the tragedy happened. She tried to kill Hye Jung for what she did but couldn't when she whispered "hwan" while sleeping. However, she couldn't bare the situation neither the pain so she hung herself in the tree near where her son was buried.
I believe she couldn't forgive Hye Jung for killing her baby and i think it was that what kept her in wonderland.
The fact that she haunted Hye Jung in her nightmares I think it was because she wanted her to go to wonderland to save her son. Since she couldn't save him (she couldn't remember him) she wanted to kill her but Hwan didn't let her and convinced her to let go of the sorrow and the hate she felt towards Hye Jung. Soo Ryeon actually liked Hye Jung very much like she was her own daughter.


Old lady that died in the forest.
She was Soo Ryeon's mother. Because she had alzheimer she thought that Hye Jung's aunt was her daughter. She tought that her daughter was still alive and the baby was still in her belly. I think that's why Soo Ryeon didn't grow up like Hwan because she actually had people who remembered her.

Ending
A boy appeared playing guitar (the music that Hwan and Hye Jung's father played) and the rabbit suggesting he was Hwan. But i don't think he was him. So, maybe he was like a reincarnation of Hwan.
My biggest doubt is about the towel (or basket or wtv it was) that Hwan burned and it was tranfered to life. It was the same thing that the old lady was hugging all the time. I couldn't understand what that was.

Details you may not noticed
The flowers crown that Hwan gave to Hye Jung was like a gift for the flower she gave him when she was little and she said that it was her and Myodori doing. (he said the same thing)
The socks that he was wearing was the socks that Hye Jung put on him.
The fact that he was sleeping by her side holding 1 of her fingers it was the same when he "slept" for the last time by her side.
The parts of his body that were bleeding was the parts that Hye Jung stabbed him
In the begining, Hye Jung saw 2 adult people dead in the ground and she noticed that one of them was her and she told her aunt that she dreamt about her own death but it was actually a vision of what happened when she was kid. The dead person was the one by her side, it was Hwan. And she was just sleeping. They were both covered in blood... but the blood was Hwan's blood.


Well, I hope I helped you understanding the story. It's just my point of view but tell me about yours in the coments!