I may be basic, but when it comes to Korean cinema, I’m a sucker for both Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho. (On the actor front you can add Gong Yoo and Kim Tae-ri, but that’s a different story.) Kim Seong-sik, the first-time director of Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman, worked as an assistant director for both Park and Bong on some of their best works, namely Decision to Leave (Park, 2022) and Parasite (Bong, 2019), as well as with Hong Won-chan on Deliver Us From Evil (2020). Though the sample size is limited, you’d be hard-pressed to find an assistant director with a better resume just three films in. As an assistant to two of the best films to come from the country post-New Wave, he has been gifted with a potential to perfect the craft of compelling thematic visuals that most ADs will never be graced with.
As usual, Gang Dong-won (Broker; 1987: When the Day Comes) can do no wrong. He plays Dr. Cheon, a medical doctor whose practice involves psychologically “healing” those with a propensity to see the supernatural at work in the world. (He’s a pretend ghostbuster.) It would be incorrect to call him a scam artist, though; he brings a form of social, emotional, and spiritual healing to the lives of his clients. In this, he sees no conflict between his familial lineage of chief shamans and his medical practice. He may use pyrotechnics and sleight of hand to profit from his clients, but he’s still connected to his family past; looking for something obviously of the spooky sort, he crosses off places on a map each time he successfully “tricks” a new client. His newest client, Yoo-kyung (Esom), is truly possessed by the Mage (Huh Joon-ho, Escape From Mogadishu).
When at its best, the look of Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman reminds me of the work in Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva (2022): strong popping oranges, human first visuals, and interesting digital camera movement. Cinematographer Yang Hyeon-seok deserves the credit here, even innovatively making use of infrared capturing techniques and a variety of fun decisions. He prudently shoots in slow motion so slow that the effect barely distinguishes from still-frames.
But the cinematography doesn’t always maintain the standard Yang and Kim prove they’re capable of. For large portions of the runtime, Dr. Cheon clings to the new IP-driven Hollywood commercial look that has become more prevalent in Korean cinema over the last decade: uninspired color grading, untextured digital environments, limited contrast. The Ant-Man-ification of Korean cinema appears to have a claim on a shared disciple of Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook, two of Korean cinema’s most distinguishable aesthetes.
Still, there’s promise for both the artistic futures of Yang and Kim, who collaborate on the spectacular and inevitable final sequence in which the Mage is ensnared in the Seolgyeong, a talisman that traps ghosts. The visual effects and digital camera work of the scene are the most entertaining in the film’s entire 98-minute runtime, a rarity in these sort of commercial pictures where the stakes and even the look of the final acts are all but predetermined but popular appeal. The triumph over evil will come as no surprise, so I feel no shame in my “spoiling” of it. The cinematographic work of the sequence, however, I think that’s best saved for your own eyes.
Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman
2023
dir. Kim Seong-sik
min. 98
Opens Friday, 10/6 @ Showcase SuperLux Chestnut Hill
