A cold woman.
A wooden sculptor and his mentor seek shelter from a blizzard. At night, a witch enters the cabin and kills the mentor. However, she spares the younger man because he is handsome, warning him that she will return and kill him if he tells anyone about what happened. Later, the sculptor meets a woman, they fall in love, get married, and have a five-year-old son. However, problems arise when the sculptor must compete against another man to create the best wooden sculpture, and his rival is backed by an evil man who is also interested in the sculptor’s wife.
The opening sequence of The Snow Woman is quite impressive, especially when you look at the cinematography, particularly in the first scene where the witch appears. Every time she transforms into a witch, the scenes are visually stunning. And I don’t feel like I’m spoiling anything because it’s pretty obvious early on that the witch is the wife of the clueless protagonist.
But is the witch truly evil? Well, I never felt the movie gave us a clear explanation of who this woman is or her backstory. She is a snow witch, but she also loves her husband and child and will do anything to protect them. The problem is the evil man who wants her for himself. He beats up kids and an old woman just because he has powerful friends backing him. He’s also a coward, so you’ll automatically hate him.
The runtime is short—about 80 minutes—which means there’s no real backstory for the witch. While The Snow Woman has horror elements, it’s more of a romantic drama about a witch who falls in love with a man who should probably visit an optician. I can’t say I fully understood the ending, given her love for her family. I had some unanswered questions, which felt like lazy writing. Was she cursed? Is that why we got the ending we did? Early in the movie, rules are established for the protagonist, but their strong love seems to break the rules.
That said, The Snow Woman still managed to hold my interest because I kept expecting something awful to happen. Unfortunately, the movie missed its emotional climax, and before I knew it, it was over. I wanted to feel more emotional impact in the final scene, but the buildup didn’t pull on my heartstrings.