The Witch 2: The Other One - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Witch 2: The Other One



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
I remember waiting for YEARS for a domestic release of 2018’s The Witch: Subversion. It was a fantastically gory mess of a film that introduced us to a world where genetic manipulation had created humans with fantastic telekinetic powers known as “witches”. The film revolved around a young girl named Ja-yoon (Kim Da-mi) who turned out to be one of these “witches”, just with amnesia when she escaped from the Ark Lab 10 years ago. She was of course hunted down by the rest of her kind under the guise of bringing her back into the fold, while Ja-yoon slowly regained her memories and abilities. The film was a gloriously violent sci-fi/action movie and one that let me on pins and needles when she confronted the Dr. who created her years and years ago. Subversion left us with a cliffhanger where Ja-yoon realizes that there is another one with her incredible powers out there, and a sister at that.

I was actually expecting The Witch 2: The Other One to be a direct sequel to the first, with Ja-yoon once more being the main character. Instead we have a side quest film that delves into another witch that “seems” to be unrelated. The film opens up with a scene where a young girl is kidnapped from a bus and taken to a lab where she will give birth to twins (not hard to see where the film is going in that respect), only to fast forward another decade to Dr. Baek (Min-soo Jo) narrating to the agent in charge of bringing Ja-yoon in during the first film that the Ark Lab (and several others) have been hit with all the witch test subjects killed except for one. This “one” happens to be a young unnamed witch (played by Cynthia) of immeasurable power taken from that girl at the beginning of the movie. And just like Ja-Yoon, has to be found at ALL costs.

The film clues you in to the fact that we’re only a couple months after the events of the first movie, as Dr. Baek mentions that Ja-yoon had come and vanished just a couple of months ago (the finale of the first movie), only for us to be thrust head first into the plight of this new witch (hereafter known as Girl). Girl is similar to Ja-yoon in that she has no memories of where she came from, but gets picked up by a young pair of farmers named Khung-hee (Park Eun-bin) and her younger brother Dae-gil (Sung Yoo-bin) who are under attack from gangsters. Naturally Girl’s powers comes to light and she lays waste to the gangsters attempting to take the fram away from Khung-hee and Dae-gil. A move with not only brings down the ire of the mobsters wanting to take said farm, but draws the attention of a pair of hired goons that Dr. Baek has sent to retrieve Girl, as well as the same roving batch of 4 witches that nearly killed Ja-yoon in the first movie. The end result, a gigantic battle of the various super powered augments all vying for our amnesiac Girl’s capture or death.

As I said, I was actually expecting for The Witch 2: The Other One to be a direct sequel to The Witch: Subversion in narrative unfolding. Instead it simply allows director/writer Park Hoon-jung to open up the world of Witches and sort of fill things out for us. The first film was very much a closed down, angsty and tightly driven story about a Ja-yoon and her struggle to stay away from some shadowy agency that had created her. The Other One opens up the entire witchy world by introducing us to the shadowy agencies that seem to be behind it all. Instead of being nameless faces and doctors, the film dives head first into The Ark Lab creators and their goals for creating the witches. Opposite them is another group of super human creations known headed up by Jang (Lee Jong-suk) who has his own motivations for hunting down Ja-yoon. Both of them seem to be troubled by a new player in town as neither of them is behind the attack on the labs recently. Also, instead of Ja-yoon being a freak of nature and the only real super powered mutant in the room for most of the movie, it seems like the sequel has EVERYONE being a witch. The soldiers Dr. Baek sends after Girl, the 4 mysterious witches hot on her trail as well, and even Jang’s men are all souped up to the max, which makes for some insane battles throughout the movie.

The action and tone is much less angst and melodrama that made The Witch: Subversion so interesting. Instead it’s a gigantic melee super hero battle mixed with some cute drama between Girl and Dae-gil. The middle act is of course a bit slower paced, but the massive 137 minute film opens up to an incredible world with X-men style mutant witches, souped up witches that are on a whole other level, and a final 15 minute stretch that reintroduces Ja-yoon back into the story and ties everything together in what will be wrapped up (most likely) in the upcoming 3rd movie (I haven’t seen any announcements, but it’s obvious that there is going to be one with that ending, and the fact that The Other One happens to be the 5th highest grossing film in South Korean history).

I do have to say that I kind of felt that this movie was a very slight downgrade from The Witch: Subversion. It’s got a lot of action, a lot of INSANE goriness and over the top fighting, but it wasn’t as emotionally engaging as the first film. Not to mention the fact that up until the very end it feels like the movie is just repeating the events of the previous film, just with another protagonist and another set of villains (though I’m ALMOST certain that the 4 witches chasing Girl are the same 4 witches that attacked Ja-yoon in Subversion). It feels more like a bridge movie that is meant to link Subversion with the very obvious finale upcoming finale to the trilogy. I mean, the last 15 minutes definitely tied things together, but we really could have skipped most of the events of the film and gone straight into the 3rd, or at least introduced Ja-yoon into the story much earlier. As it is, the feeling of being a “bridge” film still sticks in my craw.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

The Witch 2: The Other One shows up with a fantastic looking 2.39:1 AVC encode for the Blu-ray release, that looks very similar to the first film. I couldn’t find any information on what cameras were used, or what resolution the master was set at, but it look incredible. Razor sharp clarity with a storng blue and yellow color grading throughout. Grime, blood, and other various bits of debris look fantastic, and the colors literally pop off the screen. There is some “rubbery” looking CGI scenes (this didn’t have a blockbuster budget), but the black levels are incredibly strong and inky, with only the smallest amount of banding in night time skies to keep the image from being perfect. It is an all around great transfer though.






Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is a powerhouse as well, giving presence to mild and quiet dialog heavy bits, only to explode into action with gut punching machine guns and super powered “swooshing” as the witches do combat. The forest scene with the car is amazing, with pin point precision as the two witches bounce from tree top to tree top, and the last 30 minutes of the film is one non stop gorging of sonic immersion as the Girl engages in a battle Royale. Bass is solid and guttural, while surrounds are pretty much never not engaged. Near perfect mix.





Extras:

• Behind the Scenes
• Well Go USA Previews
• Trailer

Final Score: ​

The Witch 2: The Other One (not to be confused with any relation to the 2015 film VVitch) is still a blast of a film. It takes a lot more effort to unpack all of the information that explains a LOT of what happened in the previous film, and what will happen later, but I had an absolute blast from beginning to end. At this point it’s fair to say that we have our own South Korean take on a live action Akira, and I’m loving every minute of it. Now all we can hope is that the 3rd film gets underway soon, as I’m itching to see how everything ends, as the cliffhanger is ALMOST as big as the one from Subversion. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great, but naturally this is a very sparse on the extras. Well worth checking out if you enjoyed The Witch: Subversion.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Cynthia, Min-soo Jo, Kim Da-Mi, Park Eun-bin, Jin Goo, Sang-Kyung Han, Lee Jong-Suk
Directed by: Park Hoon-jung
Written by: Park Hoon-jung
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, Korean DTS-HD MA 5.1, English, Korean DD 2.0
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 137 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: November 8th, 2022

Recommendation: Fun Watch