[ID: A screenshot of a post in r/movies on Reddit. The title reads: "First Image of Song Kang-Ho in 'COBWEB' - centers around an obsessive director who wants to recut a film he made in the 70s to perfect the ending | A film by Kim Jee-woon ('I Saw the Devil')". End title.
Then there is said image of the movie. It shows a group of people including actor Song Kang-ho huddled together in a room with what looks like a concrete ceiling. They all look at something that is not in the frame. A person on the left of the image is holding a movie camera. In the right bottom corner there are a couple of white serger cone threads. There are dark strings hanging from the ceiling. End ID]
Remember when Tim Burton used to make actually good movies? There’s something about the alchemy of Kim Jee-woon’s romp which has a very Burtonesque edge to it. The intermingling of the macabre with the darkly funny in a very specifically off-kilter way, the hyperbolic performances and reactions make this in a similar vein to the likes of Ed Wood or Beetlejuice. The Kang clan simply cannot catch a break: at first their newly opened mountain lodge can barely attract visitors. But once guests do start to show up, their checkout is of the rather final sort. Deciding that it’s easier to just dispose of the evidence themselves than to involve authorities, the family unwittingly weave for themselves a wild web of intrigue and mayhem, lining up dominoes to be knocked over one by one. By the climax, it’s not a question of whether things will go awry but just rather how exquisitely terribly events will pan out.
While Song Kang-ho often picks roles that are rough around the edges personality-wise, it’s funny to see him here as an outright delinquent. Seemingly stuck in some sort of state of arrested development, Young-min is content to wile away his days spying on guests, prank calling people in the middle of sex, and generally making a buffoon of himself.