Addicted (2002)

Please don't spend money on this.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Best movie ever!

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Addicted is a South Korean thriller film written by Byun Won-mi and directed by Park Young-hoon.It stars Lee Byung-hun and Lee Mi-yeon together with Eun-su Lee Ueol and Park Sun-young.The story involves a couple who begin a more passionate love as the people around them look distastefully at their relationship.Addicted tells the story of a married couple Eun-su and Ho-jin, whose younger brother Dae-jin also lives with the inseparable pair. Seemingly they enjoy the perfect life in harmony, Ho-jin is a caring, loving husband, while Eun-su shares the same uncontrollable affection. They are the perfect twosome, whose relationship is looked upon as solid and ideal, a yardstick, if you will, for others to measure up to, an unshakable bond. Dae-jin, meanwhile, is carefree, behaves erratically and could do with finding himself a decent relationship in which he would have to care for someone else other than himself.However, their tranquil world comes crashing down around them when tragedy strikes one fateful day when two separate car accidents put both brothers in a coma.Dae-jin crashes his car during a car race and Ho-jin is involved in a taxi collision while on his way to the racing circuit. Only the younger sibling wakes, leaving Eun-su to restart her life alone without her husband. Left disorientated, events take a strange twist as Dae- jin's behavior changes, beginning to resemble that of Ho-jin, leaving everyone familiar with his antics questioning his peculiar mannerisms.Through the trauma and hysteria, Dae-jin believes he is in fact his brother and that he is possessed. Eun-su is left to wonder if her husband's soul is trapped in the body of her brother-in-law or if he's just mentally unstable.The movie offers an interesting premise.Although the story was implausible,the movie made it look like it can happen in real life.The characters involved especially Dae-jin made it look realistic.Credit the outstanding and excellent acting of Lee Byung-hun.The movie was absorbing especially during the development of the relationship between Eun-su and Dae-jin,who in the process loses his own identity to possess the characteristic of his brother in order to obtain the love and affection of the woman he desires most.The movie offers how much sacrifice one makes but in an awkward situation.Overall,Addicted's implausible storyline works with cast as well as the director and the screenwriter make it look realistic and that is the reason why this movie highly recommended to watch.

An old idea given a new spin, this film ponders the idea of a living person possessed by the soul of the dead. But it's not the Exorcist - there's no horror, no gore, just intricate, unsettling emotions and impossible-to-answer questions.Two brothers, Ho-jin and Dae-jin, are close but with the kind of tolerance and exasperation that comes from a lifetime of living with someone who is your polar opposite. Ho-jin is a carpenter who is about to have an exhibition of his carefully crafted furniture. Dae-jin is a bit of a lout, races cars for a living, and doesn't really pull his weight around the house.They share a home with Ho-jin's wife, Eun-su. Ho-jin and Eun-su enjoy a special relationship, writing letters to one another daily and treasuring their good fortune at having found one another. On the day that Dae-jin is to race in a rally, Ho-jin, running very late, catches a cab to the speedway. Then disaster strikes: both brothers are simultaneously the victims of shocking car accidents. Both end up in the hospital in deep comas.A year later, we see one of them awake. Dae-jin opens his eyes, staggers out of bed and catches sight of himself in the mirror. The significance of this is not overdone, but the shot is held long enough to let the viewer know that it's important. He is released from the hospital and goes home to pick up his life. It's slow going - he is often confused and distracted, frequently falling into very long sleeps, and physically shaky. He begins to adopt habits; watering the garden, making elaborate dinners, building furniture, putting toothpaste on Eun-su's toothbrush in the early morning. This freaks Eun-su out - these are all things that Ho-jin used to do.It becomes clear that Dae-jin believes himself to be Ho-jin inside Dae-jin's body. The tension comes from the fact that, as he tries to convince Eun-su of this by revealing facts about her that only Ho-jin would know, the viewer is also likewise convinced. The question - is soul possession possible, and if so, is Ho-jin really living within Dae-jin - which outside the confines of this movie may strike you as rather silly, is treated in all seriousness and therefore works a treat. The ending, which I will not reveal, is highly ambiguous and therefore fitting. The lead actors, Lee Byeong-heon as Dae-jin, and Lee Mi-yeon as Eun-su, are a perfect balance. Lee Byeong-heon in particular is quite amazing. His voice, his body language, his facial expressions, are all noticeably different when the transformation from Dae-jin to Ho-jin takes place. Lee Mi-yeon has an ethereal quality to her that makes Eun-su's struggle to believe all the more poignant.At 114 minutes, this is well worth your time.

I loved watched the Korean TV drama, "Terms of Endearment" from a year or so ago. This movie has the look and feel of a Korean TV drama. Problematic The acting at times shows through - as acting. There's an awful lot of smiling and mugging for the camera. Nevertheless I enjoyed the set up and wasn't really surprised by the "twist". This movie feels pretty clichéd and definitely contrived. The younger brother's character is identifiable and there are some good scenes with the 2 lead women. I was left wondering how the lead sister-in-law could actually not be angry or stomach the deception even though she was pregnant. Overall it wasn't too bad a movie. Good if you like Korean soaps, probably a little overlong if you don't.

Eun-su and Ho-jin are a happy married couple, after a few years of marriage still exchanging love letters. They life together with Hi-jin's bother Dae-jin, who is addicted to his car and drives races for his profession.But this happy idyll is broken, after each of the two brother have an accident at the same time: Dae-jin has a car crash while racing and Hi-jin's taxi gets smacked by a truck.When Dae-jin wakes up out of the coma, it's not Dae-jin speaking, it's Hi-jin!This theme might sound familiar, but in this movie there are still some surprises waiting for you...It is really worth watching!