Review of Soul Guardians, The

Introduction

The current vogue in Horror movies is for Far Eastern cinema. It seems that Hollywood keeps an eye on what is big in Korea or Japan when it comes to the next spooky spectacular that it hopes to remake. Horror isn`t my particular genre of choice when it comes to the films I enjoy, but even the few chillers I have seen from the Far East have impressed me. I wasn`t that disappointed to see The Soul Guardians come up for review, if anything it promised to be different. Actually different is hardly the word with a film that seems a blending of The Exorcist, The Omen, The End Of Days and The Terminator.

Twenty years ago, a satanic cult was found dead at one of their rituals when a SWAT team entered the building. The only survivor was a pregnant woman who was lying on a sacrificial altar. At the hospital, the baby was delivered safely, but the mother died. The events set in motion by that ritual are only now about to pass, twenty years later. The orphaned girl, Seung-Hee is now working as a mechanic, and has no idea of what is about to befall her. Satan wants a way into the world, and her body is the perfect, sanctified vessel. The only people willing to face this ultimate evil are a priest, his son and a warrior. The priest Park Shin-Bu was once a doctor, the same doctor who delivered Seung-Hee that fateful night, and has since dedicated his life to fighting evil. His son Jun-ho is trained in the spiritual arts and can create shields against evil. The mystical warrior Hyun-am has supernatural powers, and a sword that contains the soul of his dead sister. These guardians will have their work cut out for them, especially as the few remaining members of the cult are being murdered, and the police have got the wrong end of the stick as usual and are looking for a serial killer.

Video

A 1.85: 1 anamorphic transfer graces this disc, but the image quality isn`t all that attractive. It`s soft and grainy, betraying its NTSC roots. The image is prone to ghosting, and fast particulate motion such as rain causes more than a few digital artefacts. The image resolution is poor, with low detail throughout all the darker scenes. Unfortunately since this is a horror movie, there are plenty of these darker scenes. Made in 1998, this is one of the earlier South Korean films to make use of CGI, and it is quite well accomplished at times.

Audio

The Soul Guardians comes with plenty of soundtrack choices, including DD 2.0 Stereo and DD 5.1 Korean, DD 5.1 English and DD 2.0 mono Cantonese. (The flags for Cantonese and English tracks were swapped over on my player, but the soundtracks are as advertised) The dialogue is clear, but the surrounds are put to use mainly for ambience. I didn`t notice much in the way of spot effects. The subtitles are clear and well presented, and I only noticed the occasional grammatical error, and one sole spelling mistake.

Features

The Making Of Soul Guardians is the only addition to the film, and it lasts 13 minutes. The director speaks about adapting the film from the book and the novelty of CGI at the time, among other things. Unlike the film, the subtitles for this are really atrocious, grammatically questionable, and on occasion making no sense whatsoever.

Tai Seng have also included some trailers for other titles including, Red Trousers, Running Out Of Time, Running Out Of Time II, The Quiet Family and Addicted.

Conclusion

The Soul Guardians runs for 97 minutes. It felt like 5 hours. There are very few redeeming features for this disaster captured on celluloid. It manages to cram in every cliché, every stereotype while clumsily cribbing from a couple dozen other films to tell its story. The priest who believes that evil`s return is imminent, for which he is spurned by the church, a warrior who dotes on his lost sister in whose name he fights evil, the orphan touched by darkness. Meanwhile there is a dogged, but attractive reporter on the trail of the story, while a world-weary cop (who is constantly eating) tries to solve the case because he takes it personally. I was rolling my eyes so much I got a headache.

Every idea gets thrown in. Satan manages to possess the hapless in his attempt to get to Seung-Hee, and they are invariably turned into unstoppable zombies, who happen to have vampire fangs. In their pursuit, they are just as relentless as the Terminator. It`s a good thing that Hyun-am is around to rescue the damsel. It`s not just humans that the devil can possess, as a scene with a homicidal bulldozer can attest to.

Actually, just recalling the film is depressing. Suffice it to say that despite all the ideas and character quirks crammed unceremoniously into the story, the film is interminably slow paced. It`s ill plotted and makes no sense. The dialogue is laughably bad and I spent most of the running time waiting for it to end, except the last 15 minutes that crossed the line between the dire and the absurd, and actually gave me something to laugh at. There are more enjoyable things to do than watch this film, you could go to the dentist, take your dog to be neutered, listen to the shipping forecast, all less debilitating pastimes than 97 minutes of The Soul Guardians.