[HanCinema's Film Review] "Steel Cold Winter"

From the outset, "Steel Cold Winter" presents a lot of unspoken mysteries. When we see a high school student out alone skating, still in her school uniform, with a blank expression on her face, that image alone begs a lot of questions. Try guessing what these questions are yourself. The imagery in the film is very strong and it can actually be quite fun trying to figure out the vague possible solutions to such clearly defined setpieces.

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Then the movie takes a few turns and shots at the concept of rumors. And while engaging the audience on this topic directly isn't as enjoyable as just wondering what kind of person the girl would have to be to want to go skating like that, it's still passable entertainment. The damage rumors can do to everyday life is a socially relevant topic, although its use in a rural environment where nearly everyone knows each other by name and the source of rumors can be directly traced is a bit questionable. Then there's the arm.

Yes, the central mystery of this film ends up being what happened to an arm. Pigs are involved, specifically those foot-and-mouth pigs that were the center of a big scandal some years ago. And I'll just be blunt here. From this point the movie gets really really dumb. What once had been underspoken quickly turns extremely explicit as in between rumors, pigs, and weird sexual stuff "Steel Cold Winter" buries itself in a mess of metaphors whose relation to one another is extremely unclear, and further ruined by the questionable decision to turn its main characters from ciphers into characters with specific experiences.

When Yoon-Soo (played by Kim Shi-hoo) decides to throw himself into the action and start doing real plot decisive stuff, I was a little puzzled. This guy has been avoiding taking deliberate decisive action the whole movie, and now he decides to wrap himself up in the rumor game on the most spurious evidence imaginable? I thought that entire sequence was just a dream!

Unfortunately "Steel Cold Winter" is so determined to move the plot forward that it resorts to showing us that dreams are real. Maybe. And rumors too? Who knows- and more importantly, who cares? Upon first glance the film seems to have some depth glimmering below the surface but the closer we're able to inspect the storyline the more difficult it is to see any point to the story aside from just that everybody everywhere is a really mean jerk.

Conceivably, it's possible that this entire juvenile message is just the perception of our immature lead characters- but I'm not willing to give the film this much benefit of the doubt. Supposedly these kids are intelligent, introspective young adults on a maturity scale higher than any of their peers or parental figures. If their perspective is messed up too, than that just means there's no hope for anyone anywhere. Any movie that forces its viewers to go into logical knots just to get to a conclusion this banal and nihilistic simply isn't worth watching. Despair at the human condition needs some base element of plausibility, and "Steel Cold Winter"'s sudden, jarring, irrelevant plot twists completely prevent it from being able to succeed in that element.

Review by William Schwartz

"Steel Cold Winter" is directed by Choi Jin-seong and features Kim Shi-hoo and Kim Yoon-hye.