Jiok

Jiok is a Studio Dadashow work from mid 2006. It was directed by Yeon, Sang-ho and I have no idea what to expect from it so I'm just going to dive in.

Story:

The basic story is that this is a semi-fantasy world where angels exist and they show up to tell you future events like when you're going to die and where you're going after you do. The film contains two halves, one where a man is told he's going to die shortly and he's going to hell and another where a woman is given five days and told she's going to heaven. The film ... covers what they go through while preparing for the end.

There are a couple major problems with the film. The first is that the world is really under-developed. It seems to be largely based on the regular world but then angels show up and no one really reacts and they all just seem to know the rules but we, the audience, get very little insight into them. We know that trying to escape your fate puts you in a worse position but things like the criteria someone is judged by or even what kills them are all vague. It's not like the angels say you're going to die in a specific amount of time and you have a stroke at that point or get hit by a bus or something. Shadowy figures just show up and take you away. Do they decide your lifespan by rolling a d20 or something? It's especially a problem in the first half. The dude just seems to live a normal life where he goes to work, heads home for the day, relaxes and goes to bed. Why is he bound for hell? Because he's a man who isn't me and my sister's chihuahua terrier mix decides where people go.

I do kind of like the concept of a horror work where people are told their time is coming and where they can expect to go. I feel like if the world was properly developed and things were better extrapolated on it could be a pretty interesting work. I also appreciate the little theme of futilely struggling against the inevitable only to make your situation far worse than it would be otherwise.

Characters:

The big issue here is that the characters are as dull as flat cardboard. The film doesn't tell us why they're going to die or why they're given the afterlife they're given. And nothing they say or do gives us any real insight because the characterisation is incredibly flat.

Art:

The art is another issue with the film. It has that rotoscoped look that's just ugly as sin and has no redeeming qualities. It's like that rubbish aku no hana anime I reviewed years ago with the same jerky movements and choppy bullshit animation. And because they use rotoscoping, they don't even make the supernatural elements look interesting.

Sound:

The acting suffers from a familiar problem for works with very under-developed characters. The actors just have nothing to work with and, consequently, their performances come across as flat. The music also comes across as low effort but basically passable.

Ho-yay:

There isn't any.

Areas of Improvement:

1. You need more to establish the world. Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting the film needs to stop and give us a wall of exposition, but it does need to make better use of dialogue and environmental story-telling to give us some insight into how the world works and why the boring dude is condemned to hell.
2. This needs stronger characterisation. Ultimately, we have an anthology type story that's trying to explore this supernatural world and tell the stories of the people within it. But it can't do that effectively when the characters are this dull.
3. Get some proper animation because this rotoscoped look is actual rubbish.

Final Thoughts:

Jiok is a classic example of a promising premise getting let down by really poor execution and the final result is a bit shite. With lousy artwork, cardboard characterisation and an under-developed world. My rating is going to be a 3/10.