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Indian Express
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Wall to Wall review: Netflix delivers a Squid Game-flavoured darkly comedic satire
Do you also hate your noisy neighbours? Kang Ha Neul's new psychological thriller on Netflix, Wall to Wall, spotlights the brutal reality of a world consumed by ambition, greed, and the race to get ahead, whatever it takes. In a bustling metropolis where owning an apartment, a hollow 84 square meters, is sold as a badge of success, what you really get is a ticking time bomb. In South Korea's development model, these cookie-cutter complexes are less homes and more pressure cookers for modern madness. If you've ever dreamed of owning a shoebox in the heart of a packed city, congratulations, you're exactly who this film is talking to. It's less a movie, more a public service warning presented in the skin of a psychological thriller. Netflix's Wall to Wall, or more accurately, 84 Square Meters, if you prefer a triggering Korean title, tells the story of a guy named Woo Sung, played by Kang Ha Neul. Working as an assistant manager in some corporate maze, he invests all his savings to buy a tiny concrete apartment in the heart of Seoul. He thinks he has found success, a stable job, a fiancée, and his mother's proud smile. Three years in, and he's a wreck as he is drowning in debt, juggling jobs, ghosted by his bank, falling for a crypto scam. Then comes the constant, maddening noise. He can't tell if it's from upstairs or downstairs, it just doesn't stop. It keeps him up at night and wears him down. He tries everything to fix it. Turns out, he's becoming the fall guy for a bitter journalist (Seo Hyun Woo) upstairs, hellbent on revenge against prosecutor Eun Hwa (Yeom Hye Ran), who once stopped his story by bribing the system. The very same story about paper-thin walls in high-rise hell. What follows is a blood-filled game of revenge, ruining the seemingly perfect life of a man who once dreamed of a peaceful Seoul life. Also read: S Line review: K-Drama that's freaking viewers out with its dark take on shame and surveillance Netflix's rising favourite Kang Ha Neul portrays the quintessential modern man in Wall to Wall. Having built a reputation for staying true to his character, he does it again, holding up a mirror to that part of us which still dares to think that owning a small, overpriced, box-sized space will somehow bring peace. It's a cruel joke, one only a society obsessed with property ownership could truly laugh at. For director Kim Tae Joon, who exposed digital paranoia and surveillance in Unlocked (2023), using a cat-and-mouse premise, this latest story feels like a natural next step. It's one of the stronger post-Squid Game narratives about how the system quietly chews you up and spits you out. Kim knows how to frame torment: scattered things, piling dishes, Woo Sung refusing to turn on the electricity just to save the bill and thus 80 per cent of the movie is shot in the darkness. He even reuses the same bathwater for days. Seo Hyun Woo, as the unhinged freelance journalist Jin Ho, brings just the right stubborn, revenge-driven vibe, making Woo Sung his target, chasing that final 'ledger reveal' to his dying breath. And then there's Yeom Hye Ran (When Life Gives You Tangerines), who has mastered on-screen villainy by now. Her character here will make you hate her, and that's how you know how good the acting is. Also read: Wall to wall ending explained: Who's the real noise maker in Kang Ha Neul's Netflix psychological thriller? But, while the concept is brilliant, the only negative part of Wall to Wall is the second half, which loses its momentum and confuses its audience with no real motive behind some of the action scenes. In the first half, you feel Woo Sung's frustration bleeding into you. The noise, the stomping, the false accusations, the question that gnaws: what's so wrong with chasing a metro life? But while we understand that these days directors lean towards realistic endings, deviating from the happy one, the second half of the movie has less impact. There are plenty of twists and action scenes which feel out of place. For some, especially those who don't usually prefer slow burns, it might still be an engaging watch, offering an intense ride through the struggle to escape the claustrophobia of cramped apartment living. But like any other, I would have wanted a satisfying ending for Woo Sung, too. So, in conclusion, Wall to Wall isn't just a thriller. it's a darkly comedic satire. Wall to Wall, through its noisy premise, shows Woo Sung not losing his sleep but losing his grip on reality, his relationships, and ultimately his own self, to the point he wants to take his own life. The ending scene particularly surprised me, as I was left anxious by the last laugh, which felt personal and fully directed towards the viewers. Because in the end, the only thing scarier than the ghosts under your bed are the ones living on the other side of your thin wall, and the bank statement that reminds you exactly how much you paid for the privilege, you can't even enjoy.
Indian Express
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Wall to wall ending explained: Who's the real noise maker in Kang Ha Neul's Netflix psychological thriller?
Netflix's new psychological Korean thriller Wall to Wall, starring Kang Ha Neul (Tastefully Yours), dares to ask: Would you rather live in a pricey, noisy apartment that slowly drives you insane, or settle for a modest space that offers actual peace in a world where owning an apartment has become the ultimate luxury flex? Titled 84m² in Korean, the movie is a brutal wake-up call about class, ambition, and the price of chasing middle-class dreams in dense, overpopulated cities. The story follows Woo Sung, who invests his life savings into finally owning a flat. Just when he thinks stability is within reach, a loud neighbour and a corrupt prosecutor drag him into a blood-soaked nightmare. Writer-director Kim Tae Joon, who pulled back the curtain on digital paranoia in Unlocked (2023), now turns his directorial sight to modern apartment life, exposing the harsh reality in South Korea, where 75% of people live in buildings with walls thinner than 30 cm, where noise wars have become the new normal. Woo Sung, played by Kang Na Heul, spends his life savings to buy an apartment in Seoul, 84 square meters in size. He believes owning this place means success. But just three years in and he starts walking like a zombie, sleep deprived, constantly irritated. He juggles two jobs just to pay the loan, and back at home, he's tortured by strange banging noises every night. Woo Sung fails to understand whether the sound is coming from upstairs or downstairs. Nobody is ready to admit, and in fact, his neighbours start accusing him of being the noisy one, which makes him determined to find the real culprit. Turns out it's a freelance journalist, Jin Ho, who's been making noise at night, on purpose, as part of a long game of revenge against prosecutor Eun Hwa. She once used her power to shut down his investigation into the very issue he's now exposing. Using hacked intercoms, Jin Ho plays sounds inside people's homes, deciding who hears what and when. He handpicks Woo Sung as his fall guy, the main antagonist in his setup. Years ago, Jin Ho tried to run a story on how poorly these apartment complexes were built. Eun Hwa killed it, bribing people in the system. Now she's quit her job, lives in a luxury apartment with her husband, and is quietly buying up units, knowing a government redevelopment plan is about to shoot the prices. Jin Ho wants to frame Woo Sung as a man pushed over the edge by noise and housing pressure. He builds a story: a man mentally exhausted by apartment stress, driven to kill. To sell the story, Jin Ho even murders a neighbour to frame him, but Woo Sung pieces it all together. Also read: S Line review: K-Drama that's freaking viewers out with its dark take on shame and surveillance Jin Ho bribes Woo Sung's neighbour to accuse him of assault. He also installs an inter-floor speaker in Woo Sung's apartment to cause more trouble. The neighbour runs to the cops, and because of the investigation, Woo Sung misses the window to cash in on a crypto scheme he was counting on to clear his debt. Desperate, he ends up selling his apartment. Now broke and at rock bottom, he plans to kill himself, but Jin Ho stops him. Like a friendly neighbour, he asks him to join hands and go after Eun Hwa together. But Woo Sung soon finds out that Jin Ho is manipulating him too. He finds all the spying footage and the device used for the fake noise, connected to Jin Ho's wifi. They fight. Jin Ho is injured, but they still team up to confront Eun Hwa. Woo Sung and Jin Ho drag the neighbour's dead body to the prosecutor's house. The journalist is hunting for a hidden ledger that'll expose all of Eun Hwa's dirty secrets. When he can't find it, he kills her husband in a blind rage. Eun Hwa, in return, stabs Jin Ho, leaving him bleeding out. She then tries to convince Woo Sung to finish the job, promising to help and pointing to the ledger buried in a stack of magazines. But before Woo Sung can move, Jin Ho fakes his death. That leaves Eun Hwa no reason to spare Woo Sung either. She's about to beat him to death with a golf club, until Jin Ho wakes up and strangles her. As he lies dying, he begs Woo Sung to take the ledger and expose her. But Woo Sung is done following orders. He grabs every piece of evidence, tosses it into the oven, turns on the gas, and walks out. The apartment explodes, killing everyone inside. Also read: Blue Dragon Series Awards 2025 full winners list: IU, TXT's Yeonjun, Kian84, Hyeri, and more win big at the 4th edition Woo Sung survives and wakes up in a hospital. His mother takes him to the countryside to recover, to her quiet old home in a peaceful village. For the first time in years, he sleeps peacefully with no noise and no stress. But, in the end, he returns to his Seoul apartment, staring at the blank walls and hears banging again. He laughs. The final laugh is where the director lands his most biting jab. Woo Sung may have made it out alive, but the noise doesn't stop, because the real noise isn't the sound. It's the stress, the debt, the pressure, the ambition, everything boiling inside the walls of modern apartment life. Eun Hwa once told him, 'Noise between floors is a human problem. Why blame the building?' The title 84m², it's the average apartment size in South Korea. Just like Squid Game and Parasite, this one shows how the system chews people out.
Pink Villa
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
Kang Ha Neul's Wall to Wall Ending Explained: Was Woo Sung able to find out who made the noises?
Wall to Wall is a South Korean psychological mystery thriller that dropped on July 18 on Netflix. The movie featuring Kang Ha Neul, revolved around possession of modern day status symbols and the struggles and sacrifices that comes with it. Read to know how the story ends, including whether the truth behind the unbearable noises gets uncovered and what the last scene indicates. Who made the noises in the apartment and why? In Wall to Wall, the protagonist, Noh Woo Sung's (Kang Ha Neul) newly-purchased 84-square-meter Seoul apartment, becomes the reason for his disrupted peace and insomnia. He and the other residents of the building are troubled by the inter-apartment noises. Woo Sung, who is accused by the building residents as the noise-generator, gets help from his neighbor Yeong Jin Ho (Seo Hyeon Woo), for investigation of the case. However, it is Jin Ho himself who does it all and frames Woo Sung for it, to create a sensational journalistic coverage of the issue of noises in buildings due to poorly constructed walls. He wants to expose prosecutor-turned-apartment owner Jeon Eun Hwa (Yeom Hye Ran) for being involved in multiple such constructions. Why did Jin Ho frame Woo Sung? Woo Sung, who was tired of living like a poor person, wanted to feel like a Seoul-apartment owner– symbolising high capitalistic ambitions. He invests all his money to purchase the 84-square-meter Korean apartment. However, now, he is "house poor"– a person who owns a decent house, but is unable to afford anything else, including its bills and even proper food. Thus, Jin Ho considers him as the "epitome of pain suffered by today's young people"– someone perfect for being framed as the antagonist of his apartment noise story. Analysis of Wall to Wall's open ending At the end, after blowing up the Seoul apartment, Wo Sung goes to live with his mother in the countryside. However, in the last scene, he returns to another empty flat and laughs hysterically after hearing similar noises. It might either indicate his PTSD resulting from his previous experience or reflect that inter-apartment noises are a part of life.
Time of India
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Exploring Urban Horror in '84 Square Meters': The Nightmare of Noisy Neighbors
Your Dream Home Turns Into A Living Nightmare So you finally manage to buy your own place after years of hustling, saving, and maybe borrowing a little (okay, a lot) from every possible source-sounds familiar, right? That's exactly what happens to Woo Sung (played by Kang Ha Neul) in Netflix's latest Korean thriller, ' 84 Square Meters '. He's your typical "yeongkeul-jok"-someone who's literally "scraped their soul together" to own an 84㎡ (about 900 sq. ft.) apartment, the golden standard for middle-class dreams in Korea. But just when he thinks he's made it, he's hit with the one thing no one warns you about: mysterious, relentless apartment noise that just won't quit. Apartment Noise: The True Urban Horror Story by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 2025 Top Trending local enterprise accounting software [Click Here] Esseps Learn More Undo Every night, Woo Sung is tortured by bizarre sounds from above. Earplugs? Forget it. He's exhausted, stressed, and starting to lose it. His upstairs neighbor Jin Ho (Seohyun Woo) seems shady, always staring down with a poker face, while the penthouse resident Eun Hwa (Yeom Hye Ran), who runs the apartment association, looks down on everyone-literally and figuratively. The film's poster says it all: "Is it the apartment's fault? Or is it just people?" If you've ever lived in a flat where you could hear every cough, fight, or midnight furniture shuffle, you know this is not just a Korean problem. In Indian cities, too, thin walls and nosy neighbors are a rite of passage-except here, it's dialed up to eleven, with blood, paranoia, and psychological warfare. The Pressure Cooker: When Neighbors Become Enemies Woo Sung's life is already a mess-he's juggling a soul-crushing job, side gigs like late-night food delivery, and even "borrowing" office supplies to make ends meet (raise your hand if you've ever pocketed a stapler). But the real horror starts at home. Accused of being the noise culprit himself, Woo Sung gets desperate. He confronts Eun Hwa, hoping for help, but she's more interested in keeping things quiet before the new GTX train line opens (because, priorities). Meanwhile, the downstairs neighbors start leaving passive-aggressive notes, and Woo Sung gets the creeping feeling he's being watched. "The people downstairs aren't normal," he mutters, and honestly, who hasn't thought that at least once? The tension explodes as neighbors turn on each other. Jin Ho taunts, "You think the downstairs can ever beat the upstairs?" The lines between victim and villain blur, and soon, Woo Sung's face is bloodied, his mind shattered, and the audience is left wondering: Who's really to blame when everything falls apart? Why This Movie Hits So Hard '84 Square Meters' isn't just a thriller-it's a mirror to the anxieties of anyone hustling for a better life in a crowded city. The film dives deep into the struggles of the "yeongkeul-jok" generation, crushed by home loans and sky-high property prices, only to find that the real battle begins after you get the keys. It's the kind of story that hits home for young people everywhere-whether you're in Seoul, Mumbai, or Bangalore. The cast is top-tier, with Kang Ha Neul shedding his usual soft image for a raw, desperate portrayal, backed by Yeom Hye Ran's icy authority and Seohyun Woo's unsettling calm. Director Kim Tae Joon, who made waves with 'Unlocked', brings his signature suspense to the most ordinary setting: your own apartment. By the end, you'll be side-eyeing your own neighbors-and maybe sleeping with the lights on. And if you think this is just another horror flick, think again. '84 Square Meters' is a social thriller that exposes the cracks in our urban dreams, where the real monsters aren't ghosts or ghouls, but the people living next door.
