After making their way to a remote village, Dr. Cheon (Gang Dong-won) and his assistant Inbae (Lee Dong-hwi) are approached by a girl named Yoo-kyung (Esom) who pleads with them to use their supposed shamanistic powers to aid her family. Initially put off by her soberness, they later accept the job offer anyway to see her younger sister whom they believe is possessed. It is then that Dr. Cheon and Inabe start solving the possessed sister’s case. Over the course of this investigation, both Do and In face several peculiar events which they later on come to learn is just the spirit of a mystical being that has come to life after an encounter with Do’s father years ago which results in the spirit trying to take over and control them striving to accomplish its goal.
In conclusion, “Dr. Cheon” gets a thumbs up from me since I loved it. Nevertheless, one of its most admirable parts is the endearing premise by writer/director Seong-sik that combines a number of quite fun components into something substantially better than anticipated. The fact that the character of Dr. Cheon is first introduced as a con artist who plays the role of a shaman and then is revealed to possess actual superhuman abilities sounds weak and too-often seen in the genre; however, in this particular case, it works. Together, he and Inabe seem to peddle the hwansangssugi concept as a legitimate enterprise but really it is just a sophisticated con intended to separate case seekers and their innocent clients from a good deal of money. It is indeed a nice touch that they willingly tackle hotheaded Yoo-kyung’s crazy case, only to find themselves up to their necks in what they pretend to be grossly overqualified for. In addition, the strange bond that is supposed to exist between him and his father who had died a long time ago, and both of them had been professional shamans who would have handled such an entity very competently, brings some nice additional details to this for a good time.
The setup allows “Dr. Cheon” to go over some fascinating and terrifying ordeals. The intro exorcism scene on the family manages to put Dr. Cheon and Inbae on full display and how they handle a situation deftly even though the plan was going south towards the end. The following scenes while they were reaching Yoo-kyung’s house and investigating the case concerning her sister transform in to a series of somewhat tepid, Roma-banquet tedious cute haunted house sequences where Dr. Cheon and Inbae are battling hundreds of their demons. Putting these together result topman enormous amounts of style over substance anger. They are cute though but become tiresome to watch. They ought to be termed Other than that, there was great chemistry between the couples Ok. So while the premise starts off the third act turns into a cute slice of life comedy as well which made this film fun to watch.
“Lost Talisman” isn’t bad but also isn’t good. There were a few undeniable issues, But let’s start at the beginning. The first one is overly intricate plot triggered during the last half of the film. Introducing all of these from the side of Inabe or Cheon, who have to break into Yoo-kyung’s house to dig up secrets of his father’s death and why the daughter has possessed and why do they need to move around the sacred artifact is just annoying. Each of those plot-threads is fine on its own since they are contributing to a larger picture that seems quite detailed and captures your attention. The problem lies in how everything untangled and the pace at which it happened. This explains why the second half remains unsatisfactory in terms of pace. It felt conspicuously overstuffed. The other glaring issue is of course the CGI, which has been applied liberally by the filmmakers although it would not have been inappropriate in a superhero comic that was being adapted to film. From what it appears now, the scenes of spectacle are screaming for CGI as in current times it looks too cheap without it.
Aside from that, the movie is pretty fun.
Despite minor shortcomings, “Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman” is quite an engaging genre watch that is not too ambitious or demanding and nonetheless has its merits. If you like this kind of movie, or if you are intrigued by it, give it a try.
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