GHOSTS OF WAR
DVD region 2. Palisades Tartan.

The film formerly known as R-Point is re-released with a more commercially immediate title and exclusive availability from Sainsburys - a good opportunity for anyone who had previously missed this Korean horror movie (like me) to catch up with it.

The supernatural war film is a surprisingly potent sub-genre, often with its own rules of engagement - soldiers lost in the combat zone finding themselves facing a far worse enemy than they had ever expected, in the form of both ghosts and themselves. Ghosts of War follows these rules pretty closely, as a platoon of misfits head out in search of a missing patrol during the Vietnam War. Sent to desolate patch of land known as R-Point - a place we're told both the North and South Vietnamese avoid -they bicker amongst themselves, and then start to realise that not all is as it seems here. Holed up in a deserted and crumbling villa, they see (or perhaps hallucinate) ghostly figures, and trust between them crumbles as they lose their grasp on what is or isn't real.

The first thirty minutes or so are hard going if you're not into movies about 'asshole' (the most frequently used name in this film) military units trying to out-macho each other (on the other hand if you think the 1980's was cinema's greatest era, you'll probably be orgasmic). But once the horror begins, the film kicks up several notches in quality, mixing genuinely eerie moments with effective doses of paranoia, as the unit struggles against the forces that threaten them. In the end, Ghosts of War becomes a twisting, Twilight Zone-ish morality tale that has no easy answers and leaves it up to the viewer to decide just what they've seen.

If you enjoy Asian ghost stories, this is worth seeking out; and if you think you don't, there is enough originality here to perhaps make it an exception. Well worth tossing into your grocery basket next time you're shopping!

DAVID FLINT