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When Parasite scooped the best picture Oscar in 2019, it catapulted viewers over the 1-inch subtitle barrier into a treasure trove of South Korean cinema.
In 2020, another immaculate South Korean film joined that glowing pile: The Call. Released on Netflix, The Call shares the same Oscar-nominated editor as Parasite: Yang Jin-mo. If you’re partial to efficient, unique storytelling wrought with suspense, you can’t afford to miss it.
The Call is set in rural Korea, where 28-year-old Kim Seo-yeon makes the trip home to visit her estranged, sick mother. Crucially, she loses her phone on the train journey over. This fatal error sees her forced to use a cordless phone. After one fateful phone call, a true nightmare unfurls.
Seo-yeon interacts with another 28-year-old woman — Oh Young-sook — who cries for help from her own « crazy » mother. The trailer-advertised reveal: Both women are in the same house, but from different times. One is in 2019, the other in 1999. Cue awesome ’90s Korean grunge music.
