Haunters is a film for people who love offbeat characters and stories. One part M. Nights Unbreakable, a dash of Zebraman, yet unique enough to be its own take on the superhero genre.Look elsewhere for a summery of story and characters, but know that nothing can prepare you for the cerebral conveyance of mood and style. Its goofy, tragic, meaningful, and absurd.Haunters stacks several memorable scenes together, and while characters backgrounds are not fully developed, I could not help but care for them, their motives and fates. All but the antagonist reminded me of friends. The villain's motives are not without merit, but his crimes can not be rationalized or redeemed.A couple themes revolve over and over - Why does one chase fate (?), and are others responsible for our own actions? Do we convince ourselves that others make us act and feel a certain way?Advice I got long ago when painting is always make the corners interesting, and acknowledge the outside edges. Haunters' opening and closing are both memorable, and bookend nicely (something about emergence from restraint?). Presentation, design, look, and feel - this film is well considered with emotional and sensory depth.Way above average 8/10

Cho-In (Gang Dong-won) has a remarkable ability: he can control the actions of anybody that he can see, up to and including large crowds. He has no friends, or family for that matter – in fact, as a child he forced his father to kill himself and almost killed his mother too – but he doesn't need people, except to have them do his bidding such as giving him all the money at a place of business. He has no fear, because nobody ever remembers him or what happened when he had control over them. Kyu-nam (Ko Soo), on the other hand, has supernatural powers of healing, which he needs as he seems to get into physical jeopardy fairly often. He and his two friends Bubba and Al, from Ghana and Turkey respectively, live life joyously although they are poor and work in a junkyard. After an accident, Kyu-nam is fired, but finds himself a new job in a family-run pawn shop, a place he very much likes. That is, until Cho-In comes along to take money from the old man who runs the place; and Cho-In is himself in for a shock when he discovers Kyu-nam, who turns out to be the one person Cho-In cannot control with his mind. As these two characters interact, the deadly body count starts rising, and it seems there's no way to stop more carnage, for Cho-In is determined to erase Kyu-nam from existence, seeing him as a threat, and Kyu-nam is damn near indestructible....This is one of those wonderful Korean movies that has a bit of everything: it's really funny, really sad, full of horrific deaths and full of loving exchanges. Oh, and it tells a really good anti-superhero tale, too. One thing I've rarely if ever seen in Korean films is non-Korean (or non-Asian) actors, so it was a special treat to see a Black man from Ghana and a Caucasian from Turkey – unfortunately, I couldn't discover the actors' names, but they were both excellent sidekicks. But the show belongs to Ko Soo and Gang Dong-won, as two men with inexplicable abilities doomed to be enemies to the death; recommended.

Haunters is an action-movie with a weak plot, which tries to profit from his unusual story. It's all about two men, from which one (Kyu-nam) is frequently brought to the brink of death and for no reason always recovers. You never get an explanation for his ability to survive bullet shots, broken heads and falling from tower buildings. Apparently Kyu-nam has no supernatural powers to make him almost invincible, but no one seemed to care about such "details". Cho-in on the other side is a weakling, who's only ability consists of being capable to control other people. At one point, he starts seeing things in a blur and seems confused and weakened. Again, we get no explanation for this. So, apart from such action scenes and many dead people that movie hasn't much to offer. I wouldn't call it a total waste of time, but it's not even average entertainment.

HAUNTERS is vaguely reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan's UNBREAKABLE insofar as we have an unlikely blue-collar superhero fighting a sociopathic arch-nemesis. After that the comparisons begin to break down. But like me, there may be some who will find themselves constantly reminded of UNBREAKABLE as they watch this excellent South Korean film. Cho-in (Dong-won Kang) is a reclusive man born with a powerful telepathy that allows him to control the actions of anyone within his field of vision. Parental rejection and a lonely life of petty theft has left him sociopathic. This is bad news for the one man who can stop him. Following a serious accident, Gyoo-nam (Ko Soo) discovers he has regenerative powers and soon thereafter learns that he is the only person not susceptible to Cho-in's dark telepathy. The game of cat-and-mouse that ensues results in a macabre body count of innocent bystanders possibly unlike any superhero film you've yet seen. South Korean films often contain an inherently maudlin quality (referred to as "han") that Western audiences sometimes find icy and distancing, but it reflects the sensibilities of a country whose national identity is one of constant heart-ache and profound loss. This is certainly true of HAUNTERS as Ko Soo's character, Gyoo-nam finds somewhere within himself the strength and will to get up and keep going after being traumatised and knocked down time and again. Watch this with an open mind and it will stay with you long after the end credits have rolled.