More people should watch this South Korean time travel thriller on Netflix

In the year In 2019, a South Korean dark comedy thriller Parasite He took it. Best Picture Oscar. For many viewers, he described them in 1-inch subtitle block A treasure trove of South Korean cinema.

At the top of the shiny pile is another South Korean film, The Call. Released by Netflix In the year The 2020 Oscar-nominated editor as Parasite shared Yang Jin-mo. If you can’t miss it, if it’s a semi-elite, unique story that works with suspense.

The Call is set in rural Korea, where 28-year-old Kim Seo-yeon returns home to visit her estranged and ailing mother. Crucially, she lost her phone on a train journey. This is a fatal error that forces you to use A Wireless phone. After one fateful phone call, a real nightmare unfolds.

Seo-yeon meets another 28-year-old woman — Oh Young-suk — who is crying for help from her own “crazy” mother. The trailer is revealed: Both women are in the same house, but from Different times. One is in 2019, the other in 1999. Check out 90s Korean grunge music.

In this strange connection, Seo-yeon in the present timeline is drawn into dealing with the tragic events of the past. The only condition is that this depends on his friendship with another woman online, whose situation may be even more hellish than her own.

The fact that these women meet face to face shows the depth of talent of actors Park Shin Hee and Jeon Jong Seo. They begin a cat-and-mouse tug of war over unknown mines and hazards. The tension is constant.

The ensemble is rounded out by the women’s mothers, played by the equally extraordinary Kim Sung-ring and Lee Il. In particular, Lee L produces an unflinching parental performance that haunts children like Carrie, Coraline, and Norman Bates.

Every step of the film making process is passed through a transparent sieve. The attention to detail is immaculate. It also includes editor Yang Jin-mo, the filmmaking team of Avengers: The Age of Ultron and The Great Gatsby colorist Vanessa Taylor. In the current timeline, you see the scenes with Seo-yin covered in purple, representing her sadness and despair. In the past, Yang-suk’s scenes glow red, symbolizing anger, danger, and violence.

The stress you feel while playing the game is a reflection of how deeply the call draws you in. Yes, it offers a high-concept time-travel mind-melder, but it’s all underpinned by the pillars of a mother-daughter relationship. Oh, and there’s a lesson somewhere about the value of changing your destiny, but luckily it doesn’t throw a splat in your face.

Like Bong Joon-ho’s film, here director and writer Lee Chung-hyun’s shocking midway twist changes everything you know on the playground. It all wraps up in an emotionally satisfying finale before unleashing a final heartbreaking surprise.

The Call is a gentle, creative, sophisticated story that will make you cringe at high-end movies that don’t often make it to Netflix. Get it off the back of your Netflix streaming shelves ASAP.