Who's that Knocking at my Door?

A

Directed by Yang Hae-Hoon

What? Martin Scorcese is at Fantasia!? Nope, this isn't the 1968 Harvey Keitel vehicle but rather a 2007 release by first time director Yang Hae-Hoon. "Who's that Knocking at my Door?" centers around Je-hwi, a young adult who was formerly bullied by his schoolmate Pyo, who he meets again by chance due to a string of unforeseen incidents involving his girlfriend Jang-hui. Although Pyo at first seems glad to see Je-hwi again, and Je-hwi himself appears to ambivalent but not altogether resentful of his former tormentor, Pyo eventually goes missing, the victim of an act of retribution by Je-hwi. The crony Je-hwi has hired to abduct Pyo, however, is not altogether psychologically stable and when Je-hwi attempts to call the whole thing off things begin to go very, very wrong.

The Fantasia media guide compared "Who's that Knocking at my Door?" to Shunji Iwai's "All About Lily Chou-Chou" as well as Park Chan Wook's revenge gone wrong thriller "Sympathy for Mr. Vengence." Although the comparisons are in many ways apt, "Who's that Knocking at my Door?" deals with its subject matter in a far different way then either of these two films. Where "All About Lily Chou Chou" mercilessly depicts teen bullying as a veritable pandemic that indiscriminately and permanently destroys lives, the impact of Je-hwi's torment at the hand of Pyo, although evidently a horrible passage in Je-hwi's life, is nonetheless softened by time as Je-hwi himself admits that his memories of Pyo's abuse are fading. Likewise, the downward spiral of vengence depicted in "Who's that Knocking at my Door?" is much less ludicrous than the chain of events that make up the denouement in "Mr. Vengence" and consequently gives the story an added ring of truth.

"Who's that Knocking at my Door?" succeeds the most, however, in dealing with the same questions as films like "Mr. Vengeance" and "All About Lily Chou Chou", questions pertaining to such things as the emotional effects of bullying and the psychological toll of vengence, in a much more nuanced and essentially far more succesful way. Although Je-hwi is the victim and Pyo the perpetrator, Yang-Hae-Hoon's script makes it clear that both carry considerable emotional baggage which spills over into their interactions with others. The film also benefits from an atmospheric and remarkably melancholy aesthetic that is all the more commendable since it was achieved on a low budget.

"Who's that Knocking at my Door?" is one of the most solid Korean films I have seen this year and by far the best film I have seen at Fantasia so far. Although it suffers from a cryptic ending which I fear may simply be nonsensical as opposed to "difficult," it nonetheless marks a promising debut for Yang Hae-Hoon who I hope to see deliver similar work in the near future. Now it's just too bad that I will probably only get my hands on the DVD in 2013...