After 5 movies the series is still going strong! You can't say this about an awful lot of series, especially not ones within the horror genre. In that regard the series deserves lots of credit but at the same time it also isn't exactly a movie series that stands out with great movies in it. All of them are quite average but certainly original and watchable enough to check out. Also as standalone movies, fore the series its movies aren't really connected to each other story- or character-wise.
It perhaps isn't fair to call this movie an horror, since it actually focuses far more on the mystery and dramatic elements of the story. This has basically been the case with every movie out of its series but yet they keep on advertising it as Asian horror because that simply is the popular thing to do. It would also be hard to advertise it in any other way really and find the right target audience for this movie. It's a hard sell because all of these movies are basically such unique and original ones within its genre. That's why I always keep enjoying these movies and wouldn't mind seeing more of them being made in the near future. As of yet this remains the last one out of the series but there is no reason to stop here really. There is still plenty of ground to explore and new, different, approaches to take on its concept.
But having said this; I don't regard "Yeo-go-goi-dam 5 - Dong-ban-ja-sal" as an all too solid movie. Out of all the movies this one has probably the most simple script, even though toward the end the movie becomes overly complicated again. It might be because the movie is 'borrowing' too much from its previous movies. The characters are all the same again, even though its a fresh new story with new characters and actors in it and also the way the movie progresses is quite predictable, especially when you've already seen some of the previous movies out of the series. The movie reminded me a bit too much of the first and the third movie; "Yeogo goedam" and "Yeogo goedam 3: Yeowoo gyedan", which does perhaps makes this a bit of a redundant entry within its series, that doesn't add enough new things.
The movie is still good though. It has a pleasant buildup, which is slow but steadily and with every minute starts to show more and more of what is going exactly. In that regard this movie works far better as a mystery than an horror really, even though the movie still has plenty of scares and also bloody moments in it.
Thing that didn't worked as well were its actors. Out of all the movies within its series this one probably featured the worst actors in it. Or perhaps it was the directing, since every movie out of the series had featured young, inexperienced actors in it, of which some had never acted before and also never again.
It's still a steady movie, that also helps to keep the series a steady one.
6/10
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