The Baedalian Girl in a 2024 Korean short film that combines elements of martial arts films, horror, tokusatsu, and possibly LSD. The film’s poster credits the director as Bob Kim, although the film’s credits state that it is the work of a Kim Gap-sik. Either way, the film hit YouTube back in late Sept/early-October of this year.

The film opens to find a young woman (Yeon-Soo Shin) running through the woods, slowly pursued by what appears to be a zombie dressed in Army fatigues. It should be noted that our zombie is created via nothing more than a cheap latex mask that doesn’t fit the actor quite as snuggly as it probably should. There’s some brief fighting between the two, featuring some of the gentlest hits I’ve ever seen, but the chase continues on.

There’s a rather short, but generally confusing flashback sequence that’s meant to shed a little light on our heroine and her backstory, but really explains little more than the fact that our lead has some sort of undefined superpower(s). It’s quite evident that the zombie is trying to obtain her necklace, presumably because they are the source of those powers, whatever they may be.

Even more seemingly directionless meandering through the woods follows, as well as a bewildering sequence in which the zombie appears to forget his lines, prompting a visit from the film’s script supervisor. Even more bizarre is the fact that the zombie never actually delivers the line after looking at the script. I’m not sure if this was an attempt at humor or the filmmaker bluntly telling the viewer not to take the film too seriously (which I highly doubt they are by this point), but it just comes off as strange. Not as strange as what follows though.

Eventually, our heroine has no choice but to confront her assailant. The zombie emits some sort of energy from its fingers, which fills the girl’s head with random images that appear to have been lifted directly from a K-pop music video. However, the girl manages to fight back, leading to a barrage of psychedelic lighting, trippy coloring effects, and other somewhat hallucinatory images, including a “Game Over” screen that looks fairly similar to the one from Donkey Kong.

The film leaves the door open for more of the Baedalian Girl’s quest, whatever it actually is. There’s also a brief “making of” featurette included after the film’s end credits that doesn’t really add much insight to the film or its creation, but it’s there, nonetheless.

Honestly, while I do salute The Baedalian Girl for… well, for just being weird, my praise for the film is quite limited. While many modern-day indie or low-budget filmmakers often try desperately to little or no avail to make their film look vintage and/or “low-fi”, The Baedalian Girl truly does look like it was recorded on the shittiest quality video tape, one that has been duped over multiple times. Granted, having a film that looks like straight-up ass isn’t something one should normally strive to achieve, but in this case, the “vintage” aesthetics work, or at least as well as such an effect can.

At only just over 13 minutes long, The Baedalian Girl isn’t going to ruin anyone’s day. While I surely can’t recommend the film to all audiences, those looking for something a little different and a LOT perplexing may want to give this one a watch. While I wouldn’t exactly say that I enjoyed the film, it definitely got my attention, for better or worse.

Watch The Baedalian Girl here: https://youtu.be/OdvqHZWLZrk?si=WmDElGSJy6WPNBT-