Review: The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion
After sitting in my Netflix queue for about two years, the time had finally come to watch The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion. At a glance, the title is interesting just for sounding like a Gen 4 K-Pop album, but it's also a kind of apt representation of what watching the movie is like in the sense that it manages to squeeze several very different genres into one sitting. It begins as a family drama/comedy and ends on a cliffhanger after a long, bloody action sequence of a third act, which can be expected of something with "Part 1" in its title. Rumored to be the first installment of a yet-to-be-continued trilogy, The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion sets up a long line of dominoes that could fall in just about any direction.
Opening with a little girl escaping a secure facility into the arms of a farm couple who gladly take her in, we’re introduced to our hero, Jayoon (Kim Dami). Ten years pass and Jayoon lives a normal life in spite of her occasional splitting headaches, and her priority after school is caring for her aging parents who can't take care of the farm like they used to. When she's presented with an opportunity to win big money by competing on television, she takes it.
Luckily, Jayoon has what it takes to become a pop star: she’s personable, an effortless beauty, has good grades, and surprises no one when she reveals on live TV that she sings so well, there's clearly no competition at all. Her close friend, Myunghee (Go Minsi), quickly takes it upon herself to manage Jayoon on her rise to stardom, and things are looking up until they run into a handsome stranger (Choi Wooshik) who speaks so smugly to Jayoon that she's almost convinced they've met before. This nameless boy is soon revealed to be the first of many who've been hunting her ever since the day she escaped as a child.
From here on, the story swaps the delightful banter between the two girls and their plans for Jayoon for new plans that are made for her. Her life changes in an instant when she inexplicably mows down the group of black ops men who break into her home, and they’re followed by the same boy and a few others like him who threaten to kill everyone she knows if she doesn't come with them. In exchange for her friends and family's safety, Jayoon concedes, and then The Witch flips on the viewer again with a twist that changes the story from our hero overcoming adversity to our anti-hero pursuing vengeance.
I don’t think this movie is based on a comic, but it really feels like a comic or Webtoon adaptation. Not only does it develop fast in the nature of superhero comics, but there are so many elements that I, personally, consider to be almost comic-specific: main protagonist who's good at everything doesn't realize she's good at everything, way-too-cool set of young antagonists in matching shades of black, and a lot of action where the lot of these perfect teen characters unleash hell upon their surroundings for no reason other than boredom. It's almost corny in an anime way, but it's so endearing that I still found myself squealing when Choi Wooshik makes threats and condescends in English.
If The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion has one weakness, it's that the wind down is far too long. The beginning of the movie is paced perfectly, and the lead-in to what follows is just as smooth. Yet, once everything is all said and done, there comes a lot (a lot!) of slowly spoken, whispery dialogue that feels very repetitive. But this is still two full hours of movie we're talking about, and that space is largely filled pretty wisely which is a feat on its own. Of course it couldn't be done without smart direction and A-list performances. There are currently no updates as far as when the next installment might release, but we shall wait patiently for more.