Christmas Carol 2022 Movie Review: A Horrid and Depressing Story of Revenge

Christmas Carol 2022 Movie Review

Director: Kim Seong Su

Language: Korean

Cast: Park Jin Young, Kim Young Min, Kim Dong Hwi, and Heo Dong Won

Music: Jinyoung

Synopsis

A Christmas Carol’ is a story about a twin brother who goes to a juvenile detention center on his own to avenge the death of his twin brother.

Christmas Carol 2022 Movie Review

The first scene was just anguish overload. It introduced a grief-stricken II-woo (Park Jin-young) seeking to avenge his twin brother’s death. Park Jin-young conveying raw emotions of grief and anger during the first 5 minutes was just flawless. It was just applauding that he was able to get rid of his flower boy Kpop idol persona and transform into a dirty, gritty, and morally-ambiguous character.

“A Christmas Carol” is the pinnacle of his acting chops and just proved his versatility. Park Jin Young is the highlight of this movie and deserves an award nomination at least. For the plot, it had a stable direction while it focused much of its first half on the violence/ revenge part then addressing the problem in the second half.

There are several trigger warnings and some people won’t be able to digest or feel the same rage as me while watching it. If one could be able to get past the first hour without having the urge to end it, the second half, although darker, would be interesting to watch.

It was emotionally investing to see II-woo’s journey in achieving justice for his brother’s death. The flashback scenes shed some light but at the same time, just felt utter pity towards Wol-woo’s plight. II-woo’s realization, later on, was just heart-breaking, as with most scenes towards the ending.

Also, Read Melting Me Softly K-Drama Review

Could’ve been better in terms of tension build-up, especially when it was revealing who was behind the crime. The reveal was still good, it was somewhat surprising but it also felt disjointed in terms of its execution. But when everything was then connected, it now all made sense, and it being gory is such an understatement.

For seasoned movie watchers though, the “plot twist” could be already seen a mile away. Even with all the horrible events throughout the movie, the ending still provided a glimpse of light. Only a glimpse, since it doesn’t yet evoke a societal level change and the court verdict was questionable, but still a glimpse, since it triggered a talk, if not a controversy about this movie and its story.

Maybe it can be a catalyst for such gruesome incidents to be stopped and prevented in the future. With that in mind, I think this movie was able to tell its message to the viewers quite well aside from a few wonky sequences and storytelling in the later part.