Analysis Of Asian Horror Essay Examples

The Asian Horror films that we have viewed for the previous ten weeks were impressive to analyze and view. Last term, I had the experience of attending the lecture of a Kurosawa Kiyoshi film; this term is much different. In contrast to the last term, this term included diverse horror films from different countries in Asia, and last term was Japanese films only. Each film during this term has their own characteristic including directing style, unique way of thrilling the audience, and the way in which the message and theme of each film is delivered. Comparing the genres of Asian Horror films to Western horror films, Asian Horror films are kind of hard to classify into a variety genres, as there are only few types of horrors; also, Asian Horror mostly focuses on the spiritual and incorporeal point. The Asian Horrors viewed this term are largely classified into several parts; Japanese horror, Korean horror, Hong Kong and Thailand horror. Each Asian Horror films are embossed with a different characteristic. Take for instance, Korean horror films are divided into ‘Ghost movie’, and ‘Thriller movie’; while thriller movies are unjustly treated as horror movies, they are scary movies.
Korean horrors have themes which are varietal and fresh; even though they are less likely produced than other genres. Japanese horror films are geared more toward using mental fear than showing the direct cruelty or gruesome images. Japanese films are not only interpreted with the fear or cruelty, they usually contain a story of victims who hold grudge or resentment against something or someone. For that reason, Japanese horror films hold a novelty a provoking fear within its audience. Last but not least, Hong Kong and Thailand horrors have many reversal films in which the plot turns reverse at the end breaks the audience’s expectation of the ending of the movie. These films show a direct fear by provoking direct atrocity and cruelty, for instance, by using body parts or blood in the movie; they are quite gruesome unlike Japanese and Korean horror. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the analysis of Asian Horror films viewed in class, offer a sense of how differently fear was provoked in each film, and talk about thoughts discussed on the basic elements of film present in these films known as mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound design.
“The Eye” directed by Pang brothers. The movie provoked horrible fear even though it did not include any blood in its scenes. Instead, the movie gives audience the sense of lingering minds afterward; this film forced the audience to focus on uncanny scenes like the grim reaper, and the scene of transplantation of organs and the mood of gloominess. This film brought about a few social problems like gender stereotyping; the difference between men and women is incredibly high in “The Eye”. A more in depth social problem can be seen in a sense of right or wrong.
The Pang Brothers capitalize on cellular memory and use it as a means to provoke fear. Cellular memory suggests that the body’s cells, other than nerve cells, can store memories. Transplant patients have been known to grow to take on characteristics of their deceased organ donors; most doctors and scientists disregard the theory as a phenomenon, thus it is often used as a technique in horror films to provoke fear. This kind of fear offers genuine fear rather than providing a momentary fear, which means that the fear remains even after watching it. The use of this concept in horror movies provides a fresh horribleness, at the same time it brings about the social problem of right or wrong.
In “One Missed-Call” fear is provoke through the use of sound effects and technology. The composition of this film was similar to the Japanese ‘Juon’ and the development of the plot was similar to the movie ‘Ringu’. “One missed-call” provoked fear in the sound effects by using technology. For instance the phone ringing, much like the movie ‘Ringu’, which used a television for its sound effect. The remarkable aspect of this movie is in the way fear is provoked by using materials that are commonly used in daily life by people like a cell phone, clocks. The use of these very familiar materials makes a strong sense of scariness. The technology used in these movies makes the audience more uneasy as audience is thrilled through the expectation of what might happen next. The scenes used technologies in this movie can be interpreted as the prevalence of technologies in the world. At the same time, the scenes show the absent of presence where people are disconnected with the physical reality, communicating through the technology instead of face to face, which means people are physically there but mentally elsewhere.
The cinematography used in this movie was well done during the scene in which Yumi’s friend died by falling from the elevator. The camera angle from the high place gives more strained tension and provokes distress amongst the audience. In addition, the movie indirectly provokes fear in the audience by showing the abuse of morality within the mistreatment of children. Case in point, when Yumi is oppressed by her mother, then Yumi abuses her experience to others by giving candies to people. The people who ate the candies are found dead, or would die, which shows that the candy contains the symbolism of death in the movie. The surprising scene of this movie is when Yumi hugs her mother’s corpse similarly like in the movie ‘Ringu’. “One Missed-Call” uses the scene in which she hugs the corpse to implicate sympathy in order to pay off the resentment or the hostility which the corpse possesses, so that the movie ends with a better ending.
“Tell me something” included several cruel scenes inlcluding torso murder, excessive blood exposure and barefaced suspects. This genre of horror is considered to be ‘hard gore’ which includes scenes with limbs amputated or the exposure of internal organs. The harmony of these effects, with proper sound effect, paired with voyeuristic scenes and bloodcurdling backgrounds makes the movie full of thrill and provokes tenseness among its audience. The sense of strained, nervous and creepy scenes forces the audience to not be stable and to feel nauseated during the whole movie. Hard gore movies give a different kind of feeling while watching them comparing to the other horror movies with ghosts or monsters. The movie indirectly uses a couple works of art to illustrate and to give a metaphor of how characters feel. Case in point, “The Judgment of Cambyses” by Gerald David which illustrates the cruelty and the thirst for blood which Su-yon possesses. The action of ripping skins and bleeding in the art work is a metaphor of how Su-yon amputates the body parts.
Another art work put in the movie is “Ophelia” by John Everett Millais which illustrates the mixed feelings of anger of Suyon toward her father, the collapse of purity, and the madness of how she was mistreated. The sense of futility and frustration is introduced with detective Cho as he was defeated from Su-yon’s perfect crime. The end of this film had an open ended resolve in its non-clarity. In my opinion, the director makes this ending on purpose to raise questions and puzzle the audience; this forces the audience to create their own ending by analyzing the movie in their own different ways. “Tell Me Somehtinng” with its adequate effect and proper plot was quite a fascinating film.
In “A Tale of Two Sisters” there are dynamic colors, well used cinematography and mise-en-scene. The movie uses both the bright and dark colors for the background, which matches with each character’s apparels and places. In the beginning, the brightness from sunshine, soft scenes and friendly atmosphere are shown between Sumi and Suyon. From the moment the stepmother Eunju appears the colors from background, apparels, and places become strong, get intense and darker; especially when colors are vividly distinguished between Eunju and Sumi, the blue and red which is usually the opposite and contrasting each other. “A Tale of Two Sisters” provokes fear in the opposite of the personalities between step-mother and the step daughter that is developed in the ‘would be’ controversy between them. The intensity is raised through the simple setting of where the house is located as it isolates Sumi from communicating with others; this makes Sumi’s schizophrenia to worsen. Using cinematography the director shows Sumi’s point of view dark in conversation made between her and Eunju by using colors like all blues and dark hues, which contrast the red in Eunju’s room or dining room. In the middle of the movie, Eunju wears a red dress for dinner party. This implies that Eunju is trying to understand Sumi in front of the whole family. The audience see’s Sumi’s personality change from the beginning to the end as her cloth color changes with some scenes at the end, red to blue.
The director’s use of mise-en-scene is particularly evident, especially with the camera angle in the scene where Sumi awakes from an epileptic episode, realizing herself. The camera spins around Sumi and Eunju 180 degree and shakes. This scene shocks the audience provoking that all the plots are reversed, that an unexpected story has developed. Another use of mise-en-scene is shown by space differentiation with Sumi and Suyon’s rooms located on the second floor. Upstairs, downstairs, and kitchens are all located indifferently; this shows how characters differ and how they are far away from each other. In addition, the movie’s use of mise-en-scene, the set design within how space is configured can provoke fear. For instance, objects on the set which articulates spaces within the house.
Next, there are “Alone” directed by Banjong Pisanthanakun & Parkpoom Wongpoom, and “Box” directed by Miike Takashi from Three Extremes. The common point between these two movies is that both movies are filmed based on the twin sisters, provoking a jealousy between one another. Both movies used the subject of jealousy so that the one who died at the end harbored a grudge against the one who survived. The difference between the two films is that “Alone” uses Siamese twins, while “Box” uses twin sisters that have separated bodies. First, the movie “Alone” gives an outrageous feeling of fear by having a unique theme using Siamese twins. Bodies attached together can seem out of ordinary to the audience, paired with the weird mood flowing between the two sisters can make the audience feel uncomfortable.
The cinematography used in this film was impressive also, especially in the scene where Pim looks at the mirror, the mirror shows Pim herself at first; however, it turns to Ploy all of the sudden, and the camera shakes with the mirror eventually breaking. The camera shots with ghosts provoke shock and astonish audiences with unexpected things appearing, another excellent use of sound effect, the sense of abruptness, which causes a ghost to emerge and comes without warning providing a huge sense of fear amongst the audience.
While the movie “Box” has similar plots and analogous comparing it to the movie “Alone”, it is quite different. In contrast to the movie “Alone”, the movie “Box” used outstanding and vivid colors to convey the mood from each scene, to illustrate the character’s feelings in different places, as well. The place where two sisters lived with their stepfather was depicted using bright, red colors and fires shown in the scene when they were young. This element raises concern that the relationship between the sisters was fine until one gets jealous of another. Kyoko keeps dreaming of being buried under the white cold snow landscape by her stepfather. This contains a message of betrayal of her sister, or another message of being punished, because she survived. This also promotes a sense of guilt that she killed the sister the stepfather liked more. All this might be coming from her imagination, guilty conscience or a dream, as the scene where Kyoko awakes from the same dream is repeated throughout the film. This shows the meditations on the difficulties of being twins and provokes a sense of fear by being apart. Both movies cinematography and visual designs with colors, were impressive as they contained a message of consequence of betrayal at the same time.
During week six, we watched the popular Korean film “The Host”. The movie is different than other horror movies in that it provokes fear through the visual effect of a monster, while the other movies provoke mental trauma and scare people by showing ghosts that people can’t usually see. “The Host” gives a different kind of horror by showing a real, existing frightful figure. If there were a model of this monster introduced in the movie, it would be the Korean tradition goblin ‘Dog-gae-bi’, much like the Japanese horror movies which portray the ‘Gozira’. Dog-gae-bi has the mixed meaning of the ‘fire and the man who has horns on their heads’ like a monster. In my opinion, the director uses the monster in the movie similarly to Dog-gae-bi which harms people and inflicts great violece on the community. In relation to this, the movie uses the monster as the metaphor of severe environmental issues which South Korea contains; these political messages related to the United States, and the threat of nuclear warfare provokes fear amongst its audience.
The monster is, in a sense, the result of environment contamination, through people throwing away foods and debris into Han River where the monster lives. The monster’s throwing up as a result of this introduces a deeper sense of the symbolism behind people contaminating the environment. Here the director uses a parallelism to suggest the characterization of Gang-du within the context of South Korean society, that society has gone overboard with their disregard of the environment and the contamination itself has become or created the monster. The monster then takes on the role as the pretext of diplomatic relations. This is most evident in the scene where the Korean subordinate is forced to throw away toxins, the scene where the agent yellow is sprinkled randomly by American government, and the scene where Gang-du is caught for seeking a virus in his head which really doesn’t exist. These all imply that the Korean government is weak for dependence. The monster also takes a role as the coupling of a nuclear family. All the families wouldn’t gather up if Hyun-seo didn’t disappear. The movie indirectly shows of the serious problem of nuclear family through the film. Comparing to other horror movies, the fear provoked in this movie is that this movie contains the sense of reality, which means that there’s a possibility that this can really happen while other horror movies focuses on ghost and spiritual points that are not likely to happen.
Similar to the movie “The Host”, the movie “Old-boy” directed by Chan-wook Park contains the sense for the reality, as well. Ironically, in this movie the character itself was portrayed as a monster, a human being who usually would be anguished from the monster. The movie contains most of the elements we have observed in other movies; color design, sound effect, cinematography and symbolism. Dae-su has a style and colors which are dark and serious within red and black, while Woo-jin has modernized neat and tidy style with white and green colors. Dae-su wears the color wine in a shirt and black suit during the movie, and bleeds all the time, which reminds the audience of a monster. Woo-jin elegantly confronts Dae-su with his nobility.
“The Host” also provoked fear through the portrayal of creepy scenes where ants were coming out from Dae-su’s body when he has a mental break down. At the same time, the movie’s cinematography comes into play with the camera shaking violently, spinning around Dae-su, screaming by himself, with the provoked sound design accompanying, an effect sene in most Asian Horrors. This particular scene mixed different sound effects, and lighting effects multiplied with flickering provokes fear amongst the audience, causing the audience to feel disturbed through its extraordinarily abnormal approach. Another uncanny scene in “The Host” is when Dae-su licks Woo-jin’s shoe like a dong, then, he cuts off his tongue with a scissor to keep himself from spreading rumors to people, coming and going between the boundary of animal and human. This scene indirectly delivers the message of the power of oral language which is significant in today’s society. The mix of elements used in “The Host” perfectly supports the film to flow smoothly and helps audience to focus, thus provoking further fear amongst the audience.
Korean horror movie “Thirst” by the same director as “Old-boy”, Chan-wook Park, contains a lot of creepy scenes with blood and the decomposition of body parts; nails, skin, and so on which makes it very similar to “Old Boy. This film provokes a sense of ‘shivering’ within these crawly scenes. However, in contrast to the movie “Old-boy”, the movie “Thirst” has weak mise-en-scene, as the director was too stubborn and would not show eastern images. The movie rather focuses on a theme and a message of hesitation within the minds of people, confliction of good and evil, life and death, and the eternity and depravity through the symbolism of a bat. These two opposite subjects are confronting with one another and not amicable at all. However, people can’t easily choose only the one side as those two ideas work according to the law of action and reaction, which means that as people refuse one of those ideas, people begin to have desire against another side. For example, Sang-hyun lives as a vampire one day and as a human another day; this shows that the human mind is barely comprehensible. The movie intimates the limitation of the human condition of desire in which humans suppress their craving against something that they desire. Thus, this post-modern vampire story is much different from the traditional stereotype of classic vampire tales and introduces more human natured themes.
Last but not least, there is the film “Dumplings” directed by Fruit Chan, which was superior, artistic and the most intolerable of all the films within the peculiar theme used. The performance by actress Miriam Yeung Chin Wah was remarkable. When Mrs. Lee is eating dumplings, it forces audience to imagine eating them and provokes a fear through reality. Although the audience does not visually see Mrs. Lee eating the dumplings, the sound effect of chewing dumplings pressures the audience to tremble by hearing it. The mise-en-scene was eerie, and the illumination and lighting provided in the movie was beautiful. The character apparel and the scene of cooking dumplings harmonize well with the loose sound design.
“Dumplings” well illustrates the agony of women in that they eager to keep their beauty and youth, trait men tend not to possess. However, the movie should’ve considered more virtuous way of expressing this trait, because the scene of eating embryos, abortion, and adultery seems illogical through its sense of immorality. In addition, the movie 'Dumplings' faces the political issues of cannibalism, and the disjunction between rich and poor scenes. An uncomfortable element was introduced by the director in the theme that ‘poor people are not able to bear children, because they're not wealthy enough’. Provoking the feeling that this capitalism of behaviors, exchanging living things like an embryo, is inappropriate, but in modern day society can be compared to that of sperm donation; therefore, is it actually immoral? Is the question presented in ‘Dumplings’. Similarly with the movies like “The Host” and “Old-boy”, this movie contains the sense of real, and provides a unique horror by showing appalling and gruesome scenes even though it does not use ghosts or spiritual existence.
In conclusion, Asian Horror has their own characteristics of expressing their fear comparing to Western Horrors. Watching and comparing these different kinds of horror in different countries has been a thought provoking experience. Horror has become a favorite genre amongst films. The Asian Horror movie has taught me novel feelings, which I didn’t have from the last term. In my opinion, the elements used in many other movies, the direction method, and the themes given by the director were all amazing. Since taking both Japanese Horror and Asian Horror, I have a different attitude of films in general as I possess a different perspective in how to watch these films. The anticipation and aspiration of Asian Horrors development have increased by taking this lecture. Asian Horrors deserve more respect and distribution amongst film markets worldwide.