Even though I love horror movies, I had never heard of The Witch: Part 2. The Other One until I read about it in a forum, which caught my attention. Written and directed by Park Hoon-jung, this South Korean film from 2022 incorporates science fiction, action, and horror and is a sequel to the 2018 film The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion. The Witch: Part 2. The Other stars Shin Si-ah, Jo Min-su and Park Eun-bin and Kim Da-mi returns from the first film in the same role as Ja-yoon.
The film starts in the past with a teenage girl being abducted after an accident on a bus. She in under the care of Dr. Baek (Jo Min-su, The Witch Part 1. Subversion, Pieta) who informs her that she is pregnant with twins! The film moves on to the present focuses and on a mysterious young girl, (Shin Si-ah) who escapes from a secret laboratory and wanders around on an island a bloody mess. She is nearly kidnapped by some thugs led by Yong-Doo (Jin Goo, The Target, One Line), but with her incredible strength, she disposes most of them easily. Later she meets Kyung-hee (Park Eun-bin, Death Bell 2: Bloody Camp, Hello, My Twenties), and her younger brother Dae-gil (Sung Yoo-bin, Empire of Lust, I Can Speak). Despite some tensions with the siblings, they decide to protect her from the gang. In addition to the gang there are also some agents, also with special abilities that are trying to track the young girl down. When all parties finally find the girl, they are overwhelmed by all her powers in a bloody finale.
I really liked The Witch Part 2. The Other One despite the lack of focus on all the moving parts in the movie. There are simply too many characters and subplots that hurt the film as there is too much going on and made it hard to fathom what was happening. The film to me lacked stable direction in terms of it wanted to be a serious horror film or a comedy. The comedic parts didn’t really fit into the film considering all the intense action and bloodshed during the movie. The run time is two hours and seventeen minutes and I think I could’ve been shorter by removing some parts of the film that slowed it down and seemed pointless. Some characters were interesting enough to keep me tuned in and the gory climatic action was well-done although the fight scenes were straight out of The Matrix. I think those who love or have a special passion for horror like me, you will enjoy the movie just because it is an edge of your seat gore flick, and the lead characters will keep you hooked.
I also loved the cinematography by Kim Young-ho who captures a lot of beautiful scenery at the beginning and continues throughout. One of the best aspects of the film in my opinion.
[DS1] Park Hoon-Jung’s The Witch Part 2. The Other One is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA. The 1080p transfer is stunning with a clean, beautiful image throughout. I was impressed on how the movie looks on Blu-ray. The image offers rich textures and great details to scenery with some beautiful countryside locations. Blues tended to be the most dominant color and overall, the color palette tended to be on the cooler side. Night sequences, and scenes that are dark or foggy look nice, without any compression issues. Black levels are nice and inky with excellent shadow detail. Flesh tones look accurate. No DNR or other artificial enhancements appear to have been applied.
For the audio The Witch Part 2. The Other One has two audio tracks, which are DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0. You can select either the original Korean language with English subtitles or the English dubbed soundtrack. The audio for all the tracks were similar with dialogue and action scenes coming in flawlessly without any hissing or drop-offs. The action sounds such as fighting, guns going off, limbs being dismembered were somewhat aggressive, and yet, balanced with the dialogue.
Extras are minimal with a minute behind the scenes featurette and a trailer. Not much to talk about in the supplemental package.
The Witch Part 2. The Other One I would call a film that zig-zags all over the place with lots of goings on that requires a few viewings to fully understand the story, but you will be highly entertained, especially if you’re into horror or Asian gore films. The Well Go USA Blu-ray has excelled audio and video quality and even though the extras are on the skimpy side, this is a recommended release!
The Witch Part 2. The Other One
Director- Park Hoon-Jung
Cast- Park Eun-bin, Jo Min-soo , Jin Goo
Country of Origin- South Korea
Distributor – Well Go USA
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date –11/6/2022