Brief Story Line
Movie was divided into three different stories where each individual received a mysterious Tarot card and started to experience something major that would affect their lives. First story was about a single mother Ji-woo (Cho Yeo-jeong - Parasite, Beautiful World TV series etc) who had to leave her young daughter alone on Christmas night. Second story was about a man (Ko Kyu-pil - The Roundup: No Way Out, Shadow Detective TV series etc) who was afraid for his life when going back home. And the third story was about a delivery man (Kim Jin-young) who had to endure difficulty with one of his customers.
And what would happen to all three of them? You could find out in this film.
End of Brief Story Line
My wife and I knew that this movie was related to a TV series, either based on it or the other way around. Anyway, it did not really matter for us as we were just curious to see a seemingly unique story related to the Tarot card. Honestly at first I thought it would be a supernatural horror type, but when I saw its trailer earlier, it did not seem like the very scary type. And after the first story finished, we better understand what the movie would be like. Amazingly my wife was able to guess what actually happened in the second and third story.
After finishing the whole film, to me it has a strong The Twilight Zone feel as it was also an anthology mystery series where the persons experienced something mysterious and also life changing. However where that series had a host to give introduction, this movie did not have such and the only similarity would be the Tarot cards (except between second and third story which had a brief scene connecting them). But if you expect to find out more on those cards, then you would be disappointed as it was never properly explained (likely to keep things mysterious). This might be a bit challenging for casual audience not familiar with anthology concept. For me and my wife though, we were quite OK with it.
The cast in general were pretty good. I admired the performance of Cho Yeo-jeong who was convincing as the single mother and her behavior & facial expressions was amazing. Coincidentally the first story was the best to our opinion. Ko Kyu-pil was quite OK as well but I was more surprised with Kim Jin-young (better known as Dex) who was pretty decent considering it was his first ever experience as an actor in a movie. Aside from the three lead people, there were also few support cast but the information was quite limited and only Lee Moon-sik (Night in Paradise, Big Bet TV series etc) who was clearly stated as taxi driver. I was unable to read Korean language, otherwise I could see the full cast during closing credits. Btw, no mid or post end credit scene here.
This movie was directed by Choi Byung-gil aka Ashbun whose primary experience was directing series like Angry Mom, East of Eden etc. It was written by Kyung Ming-sun who was also the creator of the series. Further reading about the film made me realized that it was always meant to be an anthology TV series but seemed like the producer was trying to promote it by releasing a three part movie in South Korean cinemas (on 14 June 2024). So there should be more episodes in the future after this.
Overall this would be an interesting option if you want to see some mystery involving characters who had life-changing experience after receiving the Tarot card. Personally to me, it would make more sense if this went straight to TV or streaming service which would be better appreciated by the targeted audience, especially those familiar with anthology type of stories. So if you are hoping for a horrifying supernatural horror movie, then this would not be to your liking. However if you are Ok seeing mystery that had an open ending, then you would not have problem seeing this.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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