Description

A particularly vicious and gruesome killing has taken place in a women’s washroom at a Seoul shopping mall. The victim, a bitchy and unpleasant young woman, given to verbally abusing her stepdaughter, has been stabbed countless times. Two detectives are on the case – rebellious young Jung and the stoic, understated Oh, who prays frequently and is planning to leave the force to become a Christian pastor. As more murders occur, a link between them arises – a sticker of a children’s cartoon character, Princess Aurora, is left at the scene of each crime. The police are baffled, unable to profile the killer beyond their suspicion that she’s a woman. Detective Oh, however, is quickly coming to the realization that he may know the identity of the guilty party. Intimately, in fact. As the body count rises and the horrifying, heartbreaking logic behind the bloodshed starts to fall into place in Oh’s mind, he finds himself dragged deeper into a twilight realm of moral uncertainty and quiet but powerful personal darkness.

Princess Aurora is hardly your average serial-killer movie. In fact, it turns many of the genre’s conventions on their head – starting with the fact that the murderer is a pretty, thirty-something woman with a decent job and home, the type more likely to be a victim in films of this sort. There’s more to it, too – the usual convoluted whodunnit game ends quickly, as Detective Oh realizes who’s responsible, but is then replaced with a far more difficult challenge for the cop (and by extension for the audience), one that tests his religious beliefs, his sense of justice, the lingering guilt that poisons his heart and the love he still holds there. Directed with care and tasteful understatement by Korean actress Bang Eun-jin, who makes he debut behind the camera, Princess Aurora boasts capable, nuanced performances from the leads – Eom Jeong-hwa, stepping away from her familiar romantic-comedy turf, and Mun Seong-geun, tasked with translating Oh’s inner turmoil through his stony exterior – and from the quirky supporting cast. As the full picture behind the grisly events becomes clear, Princess Aurora poses some very difficult questions about the limits of love, the morality of revenge and the extent to which one single, sad crime can infect the lives it touches with deadly guilt.

—Rupert Bottenberg

Website

http://www.aurora2005.co.kr/

Credits

Director: Bang Eun-jin
Screenplay: Bang Eun-jin, Kim Chang-re (from Seo Min-heui)
Cast: Eom Jeong-hwa, Mun Seong-geun, Gweon Oh-jung, Choi Jong-weon, Hyeon Yeong, Kim Yong-geon, Kim Ik-tae, Park Hyo-jun, Jang Hyeon-seong
Producers: Myeong Gye-nam
Distributor: CJ Entertainment