Takashi Miike’s Supernatural Horror Connect Is Not for the Faint of Heart
Connect brings bone-cracking sci-fi horror to The House of Mouse.
Photo Courtesy of Disney+
Takasi Miike is not known for his cinematic restraint. The Japanese filmmaker has made a name for himself internationally (with films like 13 Assassins, Ichi The Killer, and Gozu) in part for his skill in depicting violence enacted on the human body in creative, grotesque, and visceral ways. This talent is on full display in the opening moments of Connect, an upcoming Korean supernatural horror series based on the Webtoon of the same name.
In the opening sequence of the first three episodes screened for audiences at the Busan International Film Festival, we see protagonist Ha Dong-soo (Snowdrop’s Jung Hae-in) kidnapped from the dark streets of Seoul and taken to a makeshift operating room where his eyes are plucked from his face by organ harvesters. Takashi puts the viewer in Dong-soo’s head as it happens, giving us a point-of-view perspective as we hear the squelch of the eyeballs torn from Dong-soo’s skull, nerves left dangling.
This would be the end for Dong-soo, if not for his supernatural ability to heal from any wound, squirming tentacles erupting from any break or cut to stitch his body back together. (I mentioned this was adapted from a Webtoon, right?) Dong-soo wakes up on the dissection table, in search of his missing eyeballs, from which he can still see. He only has time to grab the one from a nearby tray, popping it back into his eye socket before he has to run for his life.
It’s unclear why Oh Jin-seop (Decision to Leave’s Ko Kyung-po) wants an eye transplant, but he ends up with Dong-soo’s missing eye. A narcissist serial killer who has recently begun turning the corpses of his victims into public works of art around the city, Jin-seop is giving strong Hannibal vibes. When Dong-soo begins to catch visual glimpses of Jin-seop’s life from his stolen eyeball, he sets out to stop Jin-seop from killing more people.
It’s an incredibly bizarre and high-concept plot, and it says a lot about Takashi’s specific skills as a visual storyteller that he is able to hold it nearly seamlessly together. However, sometimes the plot strings do become slightly visible. For example, Dong-soo’s connection to Jin-seop is triggered by the playing of a song that was recorded by Dong-soo—yes, he’s a musician—and put up anonymously on the internet. The tune has become an organic viral hit and, when Jin-seop is within earshot of its playing, Dong-soo’s eye recognizes the melody and connects to Dong-soo. However, the song is so hauntingly, beautifully weaved into the story universe, it seems rude to point out its heavy-handedness as a plot device.