"Don't talk on your cellphone and drive!" is one of the things Eun-soo's (Jeong-Myeong Cheon) mother never told her son. While he is driving through the South Korean countryside and trying his hardest to convince his girlfriend that, no, she shouldn't abort their baby, because, yes, he is willing to take responsibility, he has an accident and loses consciousness.
When he awakes, it is dark and he is stumbling through a deep forest. Soon he falls unconscious again. When he comes to this time, a girl, whom we will later get to know as Young-Hee (Eun-Kyung Sim), looks down at him. She leads him to her family home still deeper in the woods, where she lives with her little sister, her brother Man-Bok (Won-Jae Eun), and her parents.
The family home is a truly strange place - a big, friendly house from the outside and a nightmare of Fifties-looking candy-colors on the the inside. The family itself is friendly enough, even if the parents are looking rather tense and everyone prefers candy to more wholesome food. Unfortunately, their telephone hasn't been working for a few days now. But they agree to let Eun-Soo spend the night and help him get out of the woods the next morning.
Alas getting out is not as easy as it seems. Not one of his hosts is willing to accompany the young man on his way, so he has to follow a set of directions that don't seem to lead him where he wants to go. It's no help the sun goes down in these woods rather early - at noon, to be precise.
After wandering and wandering for a long time, Eun-Soo arrives back at the family home. His strange hosts are still friendly and have no problem letting him stay for another night. Later, Eun-Soo awakes from the sounds of an argument in the next room. The parents seem not to be able to stand something much longer. Eun-Soo can't make out what exactly it is that disturbs them, though.
He has strange dreams through the rest of the night, and what awaits him downstairs in the living room isn't less strange, either. The parents are gone, and have left a note for him, asking him to stay and care for the children for a time.
He is of course bewildered and still tries to get away; again without success.
The next time he arrives back at the house, the children have brought even more guests - a nice and friendly pair that just might turn out to be something different than what they appear to be.
Will Eun-soo ever be able to get out of the woods? Why is the attic larger than the house itself? And what is the secret the children share? Most of these questions will be answered during the course of the film, even if the logic standing behind those answers will be fittingly child-like.
Hansel & Gretel (it should be "Hänsel", by the way) is a very fine film. As is the case with most South Korean films, all technical aspects are of the highest quality, be it camera work, lighting or the few, but effective special effects. Now that I think about it, I have never seen a really badly acted film from there, either, so we can take solid -and in the case of the child actors even excellent- acting as another given.
What made the film a very interesting experience for me was something different, though. I am always fascinated by the way Asian filmmakers treat elements of European folklore and fairy tales in their movies. There is much less of a feeling of those traditions as baggage than in Western films and a much more interesting look at what those traditions can be used to.
The film does a great job of disassembling and recombining the elements of fairy tales (and a certain Twilight Zone episode) without giving up some of the conceits of fairy tales - some of the background story and the characterization is a little too crass to be realistic, but fits into the mood of the film perfectly.
Atmosphere and mood are the main achievements of director Pil-Sung Yim here; the film always finds the right point between dream and reality, so much that I didn't even mind that I saw where the film was going very early on.
In the end, we all know where a fairy tale will lead us.