When I watch a movie I pretty much don’t care in what language it is in, as long as I am able to enjoy it. Living in Holland, nearly every movie I watch is (for me) a foreign language film. I can hear the question that is popping up in your head right now: “Aren’t there any Dutch movies?”. Well, yes we do make movies, but unfortunately most of those just fail to impress me. One of the movie industries that lately does impress me a lot, is the Korean film industry. The Koreans just excel at dark revenge and action oriented movies, but another genre they are very good at is thrillers. Netflix seems to realise that the Korean movie is gaining in popularity as well, as a lot of them have recently been added to their movie database. One of those movies is Manhole.

Lately a lot of people have mysteriously gone missing in a neighbourhood in Seoul. A young 14 year old deaf girl called Soo-jung is living together with her older sister Yeon-seo. Yeon-seo always tells her sister to wait for her at home while she is out at work, but Soo-jung never listens and every day she waits for her sister at the busstop. One night Soo-jung disappears and her sister desperately tries to find her. The trail leads her to a dark sewer system, but in her search for her sister she finds more than she expects. A serial killer has turned the tunnels into his playground, and uses manholes to kindnap new victims. Will the two sisters be the next two women to fall prey to the ruthless killer?

I am currently watching a Korean dramaseries called Heartless City (a review will follow in the not too distant future) in which an actor is playing who is very, very impressive. And that is pretty much an understatement. The actors name is Jung Kyung-ho, and in this movie he is playing the pretty disturbing role of the serial killer. Though not as impressive a role as in Heartless City, he still manages to create a truly frightening character. However I was most impressed by the young actress Kim Sae-ron in this movie, who played the role of the deaf sister Soo-jung. Her performance was very convincing to say the least, and this definitely helped to lift the movie to above average. The dark and tense surroundings also helped to instill a creepy atmosphere throughout this movie. This film did occasionally have it’s flaws though. At one point there was a scene in which Yeon-seo, calls out to her deaf sister in desperation, which erm is pretty pointless really as she can’t hear (duh). However, apart from a mishap like this, I enjoyed this movie overall. It was a nice and tense thriller, with very good performances from the cast, and a dark and creepy vibe. As far as serial killer movies go, this one won’t be remembered as a classic, but it is still enjoyable enough to give it a go. If you don’t mind foreign language films or subtitles, and like movies such as Seven or Silence of the Lambs, this one is for you.

I give Manhole a 7 out of 10 score.