Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Paul Magne Haakonsen Being a fan of Asian movies and horror movies, I simply could not let this movie pass me by. And I am glad that I picked it up, because it turned out to be one hell of a movie.Generally, I am not one to add movie spoilers in my reviews, and I will not do so here either.The story is genuinely creepy and will keep you thrilled throughout the movie. Of course, for Asians it is more scary than to Westerners. Something about the ghosts in white dresses with black hair covering the faces that just spooks them out of their knickers. Anyway, the story is compelling and interesting, and actually have a lot of depth, compared to so many other mediocre horror movies out there. I have a lot of Asian horror movies, and most of them don't reach up to the knees of the "Phone" movie.There are some nice twists and turns to the story, which is nice. The cast is good and the acting is good. The characters are well defined and have depths, so you get to feel for and with them throughout the movie.If you like Asian horror movies, then you definitely have to watched "Phone", it is a gem that haven't gotten the attention it deserves. This movie is a MUST to watch, trust me!

Anthony Pittore III (Shattered_Wake) Phone focuses on young journalist Ji-won (Ji-won Ha) who begins to receive threatening calls on her cell phone after publishing a piece on pedophilia. To put a stop to the rush of her journalist life, Ji-won gets a new cell phone number and leaves town to get away. Soon after, a friend's daughter uses Ji-won's phone and begins to scream in terror and abruptly turns into a little daddy-obsessed weirdo. This triggers a series of strange & disturbing events that surround Ji-won and lead her to uncover a mystery of the past.If I'm going to start out with a good Asian horror, this feels like it would be a pretty good start. It hasn't been remade (yet), it's reasonably well known, and it's received a solid response from viewers. I can't say the story was completely original as the "cursed electronics" theme seems common in Asian horror these days, but it's just about how the writer uses the idea. This concept was done well enough for me. Byeong-ki Ahn's direction took the creepy script and translated it well to the screen and made it into a wickedly spooky little horror. The house Ji-won moves to really helped out with the spookiness using the mix of the unfinished interior and modern style for a creepy little setting. For me, acting quality is a bit more difficult to gauge when it comes to a language and culture I'm not familiar with, but the cast here seemed to deliver strong performances and played well with the rest of the film (especially Seo-woo Eun who played the little maniac disturbingly well). On the negative side, it does have a few problems when it comes to the cheap & cliché scares it goes for, along with some of the far overdone effects that we see in too many movies these days. Granted, it has been a few years since its release which has given plenty of time for other movies to do what Phone did here, but some of these effects were overused even before its 2002 release. Another issue I had shows as the film does go on. The story does get a little muddled once it starts to tell the backstory of Jin-hee (something that is not helped by the choppy dream & flashback sequences). Once the backstory has been established and the film heads toward completion, however, we're given a very creepy, very weird, and very interesting conclusion that makes for a well rounded film. Overall, while this variation on the tech-horror subgenre may not be the best, it does serve an interesting story with some well designed characters in a quite disturbing & reasonably well structured story.Final Verdict: 7.5/10 -AP3-

Claudio Carvalho After writing a series of articles about pedophilia, the journalist Ji-won (Ji-won Ha) receives threatening calls on her cellular and she changes her number. Her close friend Ho-jung (Yu-mi Kim) and her husband Chang-hoon (Woo-jae Choi) invite Ji-won to move to their house in Bang Bae that is empty and closed. When the young daughter of her friends Young-Su (Seo-woo Eun) answers a phone call in her mobile phone, the girl screams and changes her behavior, feeling a great attraction for her father and rejecting her mother. Meanwhile Ji-won receives weird phone calls and sees and listens to a teenager playing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano. After investigating her phone number, Ji-won discovers that the original owner of the number, Jin-hee (Ji-yeon Choi), had vanished and the two next owners of the number have mysteriously died in unusual circumstances. Her further investigation about Jin-hee discloses that the teenager was absolutely disturbed with her obsessive love for a man that had broken the relationship with her, and later she unravels dark and tragic secrets about the fate of Jin-hee."Pon" is a scary and consistent ghost story that uses elements of many other horror movies but works very well. The association is immediate with "Fatal Attraction" and "Memento Mori" with the obsessive love of Jin-hee; "The Exorcist", with the possession of Young-Su; "Whispering Corridors" franchise with the ghost in the high-school; "Ringu" , "Dark Water", "Ju-on the Grudge" and many other Asian horror movies with the shape of the haired ghost and supernatural situations. The screenplay follows the standard of most Asian horror movies, with non-chronological sequences and a strong twist in the very end. The actresses are excellent and extremely gorgeous, but I was impressed with the performance of the very young Seo-woo Eun, specially after her possession, with her face changing abruptly in many situations. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "O Telefone" ("The Telephone")

jason_13 Asian horror cinema became a salvation, a die hard horror fan seeks all day long. Some say movies like Ringu and Ju-On are overrated with the argument that people are ready to like any contemporary horror that hasn't been made by Americans. Asian horror includes a brave approach with dark atmosphere, a package of jump out of the seat moments and a compulsory twist. Pon isn't exactly what I though it would be.A little girl answers a mobile phone and seconds later, she starts screaming like she has seen an evil clown. The main heroine is with the mission of solving the mystery, facing unexpected troubles connected with a terrible event from the past.Pon is the first Asian horror flick that I find very identical to most USA scary movies we watch these days. First of all, there is almost no drama. All attempts of creating a wet characters is completely covered with a scary expression coming out of nowhere. Yes, this is probably typical for that kind of movies, but not in the way, Pon shows it. At some point, those moments become annoying. It's just that they are far too much for a profound storyline such as the one Pon pretends to tell. There are over 5-6 scenes where a calm atmosphere has captured the screen and suddenly, the main character sees what is supposed to be the ghost of a previously killed female. It's scary at first, but the balance is completely destroyed in the later period of the film. It's not something incredibly retarded, but it becomes obvious that the creators is out of ideas since such story could easily be filmed in 40-50 minutes. What I mean by lack of balance: The second act is full of flashbacks, telling the viewer what is going on. And then, the same stuff continues to control the movie's fable. For example, suddenly opened eyes, supported by the sound of a nail, driven in someone's head. Too much of the same erases the well developed story. I begun with the bad points, but with a couple of compromises, we could definitely call Pon a decent film. The storyline is quite original, building another house in the city of horror that exists above the grounds of classics such as The Shining. Yes, nobody expects a masterpiece, but Pon is an inspiring, atmospheric tale. Good acting, good use of effects although their amount is too high for the movie's own good. And most important, the movie reaches a level of mystery, capable of making you a witness. In terms of horror, screams might not win your attention, but you should definitely appreciate the thoughtful plot Overall, an enjoyable horror movie with great potential, lost somewhere in the lack of principles.