Dr Cheon and the Lost Talisman Review
I was in one of the week where there is not much I want to watch and the title sound intriguing enough. The fact there is Jisoo in the movie even just a brief cameo that cause much of noise is indeed interesting. I have never watched any of the Gang Dong-Won movies and this will be the first, also interest me. His movies has been somewhat more of drama and some hard-core drama that exhaust emotion, am not a fan.
Dr Cheon and the Lost Talisman, definitely is not it. It is a light hearted (relatively) dramedy with paranormal storyline. Dr Cheon (Kang Dong-Won) runs a Youtube exorcism channel with In-Bae (Lee Dong-Hwi), in which he is somewhat a bit of swindler and use technology and psichological tricks accompanied with detective ability to read his customers. At the same time, Dr Cheon also the son of powerful shaman who passed away due to evil people, an event that left Dr Cheon traumatic as it caused severe loss of his family. A new client with powerful ability (Esom) came and hires him for severe possession case that linked to his childhoood trauma.
Excellent comedic sense for Kang Dong-Won and Lee Dong-Hwi. Kang Dong Won is a veteran actor who has acted as lead as far back as 2003 in dramedy genre among other genre. His acting for sure is not to be trifled with, comedic sense is just one strength he displayed in this movie. It is like tour de force for him to show his emotion from comedic to melodrama in frames with his father and brother. Lee Dong Hwi also equally cracked actor with quality movies, particularly action ones. Their chemistry is proof of their professionalism. Esom excellently portrayed mysterious powerful and burdened client. Esom is equally skilled in action movies having starred in Kill Boksoon (another fave of mine) among others, she can bring powerful presence into her role. Lastly, interesting cameo from Ji Soo as the powerful fairy, while it was a short frame, nevertheless it was not without its challenges with comedic moments.
Any decent supernatural and action movie will require cool visual effect, this is not excluded. In fact it requires generous amount of VFX and SFX, even during its swindling frames. While this is first Kim Seong-Sik debut movie, the fact that he has worked with cinematographer Yang Hyeon-seok in Parasite and Deliver Us from Evil showed well in how each frame is created and how seamless the visual effect stiched to the frame.
Indeed it is a lighthearted funny yet thrilling action movie which is entertaining but at the same time, it is a high quality one that you can thoroughly enjoy as movie date or movie night with friends and family. Given it is not anymore in the cinema, once it made appearance in one of the OTT, take time to enjoy and share the laugh with your loved ones.
Verdict : absolutely a must watch, may a sequel be made.
