The Asian film industry has made major development over the years to become a daunting force in the world of film-making. The Asian horror section to be particular has gained major viewership in recent years in an area that has for a long time been thought to be dominated by Western film makers. It has become usual to see Asian horror production directors being eminent in film galas and red-carpet events. This trend can be accredited to the film directors’ proficiency when shooting their films. It should be understood that the quality of film entertainment that film lovers enjoy is a product of miseenchene, editing and sound design adopted by the directors. All these aspects aid the film producers create the projected mood and sometimes insinuate the cast’s emotions for their movies. This essay analyses three Asian horror films: “A Tale of Two Sisters ” directed by Jee-woon in 2003, “Oldeuboi” by Chan-wook Park in 2003, and last but not least Kim Jee-woon’s “Akmareul boatda ” in 2010 .
In the 2003 movie, “A Tale of Two Sisters”, the director of the film, Kim Jee-woon provides a perfect start to the movie. He commences by creating tension and suspense among viewers. There is curiosity and anxiety among the film viewers as they try to comprehend the reason why Su-mi is in a mental facility. The young girl seems traumatized and demented. Further curiosity is raised with her step-mother’s apparent cold welcome. It is surprising that a young girl who has been away from home for quite some time finds it difficult to enter into the house. She instead opts to go deep her feet into the lake near their house in the company of her sister Su-yeon. The step-mother of the two girls is evidently scornful and unwelcoming in her reception. This creates a much tensed environment in the house. One would expect the girls’ exit from the hospital to be received by a warm arrival back home. Clearly this is not the case. By creating such a highly uncertain introductory scene, Jee-woon is able to capture the attention of his audience from the very beginning of the movie.
Jee-woon choice of setting for the events of the movie fitting to the nature of the movie. He settles for a remote setting for the movie: much of the events happen in a secluded house located close to a lake. He continues to illustrate utter ingenuity in the way he presents how the events of the movie are tied down to family tragedy. The movie is basically about a young girl, Su-mi, who is overwhelmed by guilt over the death of her mother and sister and a step-mother who did nothing to save them. Jee-woon’s use of psychological torment to display the guilt that slowly consumes Su-mi is remarkable. He is able to show whatever goes on behind the head of Su-mi into visual events which are real in the eyes of the viewers.
The audience of the play despite getting thrilled is able to connect with the reality of the storyline. This is a story where a young girl is disillusioned by the tragic loss of her mother and sister and considers her step mother as ‘evil’ and the sole source of her misery. Jee-woon is able to relate the tragic loss of Su-mi’s family with the ghosts that linger within her head in an extremely creative manner. The movie is symbolic of the trauma that children go through sometimes often as a result of decisions made by their parents.
In this particular movie, Su-mi is a victim of her father’s decision to marry his mistress, the resultant decision by her mother to commit suicide and subsequent death of her sister Su-yeon. The contempt that Su-mi feels towards her step-mother is exposed at the beginning of the movie when she shows that she does not wish to go into the house. Su-mi’s step-mother exhibits similar contempt for Su-mi and her sister Su-yeon. There seems to be deep seated mistrust and hatred between the two sisters and their step-mother. The two sisters are annoyed by their father’s apparent favoritism towards their step mother over them. His position seems to further aggravate the already bad state of affairs.
The appropriateness of the movie in addressing family turbulence and its effects on family stability is intriguing towards the end of the movie; all the ghosts seem to be in Su-mi’s head. There are no ghosts coming after her and her sister; just an overwhelming feeling of agony and pain over the loss of her loved ones. This is accompanied by a feeling of extreme loathe against her step mother whom she considers to be the cause of her predicaments. The ghosts that she seems to be running away from are a denial and inability to face the reality of her tragedy. Being taken back to hospital reveals Su-mi’s inability to deal with the truth and move on with her life. It also symbolizes her inability to forgive her step mother for living her mother and sister for dead.
The movie is set in an environment that brings out the somber mood of Su-mi’s predicament while at the same time instills fear among the audience. While the viewers initially consider Su-mi to be evil because bad things happen around her, they sympathize with her when they finally learn of the predicament that Su-mi faces: that of a dark past that haunts her conscience. The screenplay in this movie has been perfectly done. The cast chosen by Kim Jee-woon played their roles exceptionally well.
“Oldeuboi ”, translated as ‘Oldboy’ in English is a 2003 horror movie directed by Chan-wook Park. Park uses the power of mystery exceptionally well to entice his audience. He creates a major character in Dae-su who is put under confinement for unknown reasons, his wife murdered and child adopted by another couple. The motive for his confinement remains undisclosed until 15years later after his release when he seeks out to find out the truth himself. Park creates in Dae-su a character that seems to have lost everything and is disillusioned by the ‘turn-around’ in his life. There is an ironic twist of fate as we see Dae-su bump into Mi-do who apparently turns out to be his own daughter who works in a restaurant. He gets intimate with the young girl and the two eventually have a sexual relationship. Dae-su is pre-occupied with knowing his captors. He traces a delivery man and tortures him to get information out of him. Finally he discovers that an old boy of his school Woo-Jin Lee, is the one who had held him under captivity all that time. The movie is hence symbolic of the actual cause of the unfolding events.
Park takes the audience down memory lane when Dae-su confronts Woo-jin Lee for answers. There is flashback when Woo-Jin Lee narrates how Dae-su’s unintended disclosure of an incestuous affair that Woo-jin’s had with his sister had driven her to commit suicide. He also reveals that Mi-do is his long lost daughter. This is Woo-Jin Lee’s version of vengeance towards Dae-su. He threatens to inform Mi-do about this and in a desperate attempt to save Mi-do from the truth, Dae-su cuts out his tongue so that Woo-jin Lee does not reveal the secret to his daughter. The scene is desperate and Park shows that some loses can drive people to seek revenge.
Park ensures that the audience is glued to the scenes all through the movie as they wait eagerly to experience the unfolding truth. Viewers have to remain bonded to the screen so that they do not miss out on any enigmas that are unveiled in the development of the movie. In fact, it is only just before the end of the movie that they get to learn about the reasons why Dae-su is in reality with his predicament. It also displays vengeance as a powerful experience that can make individuals have and get lengths just to make the culprits pay for their pain. Woo-jin Lee composes a ‘pay-back’ outline against Dae-sue who they were with in high school. This shows the pain that he had been feeling for such a long period of time.
After his release from captivity, the movie shows Dae-su making attempts at finding his daughter and comes to the realization that she was adopted by a pair from Sweden after his wife's murder. Recollecting the dumplings he took while under captivity, Dae-su discovers the restaurant that prepared them and manages to follow a delivery man to the place of his detention. He gets information out of the warden by beating the information out from him. Battling his way past several henchmen, he makes his way out of the place.
Finally, Dae-su is approached by Woo-jin Lee who discloses his identity as his captor. Woo-jin Lee is a very affluent man. He provides a condition that Dae-su is supposed to meet before five days elapse: Woo-jin taking his own life if Dae-su discovered the reason for his confinement or Mi-do will die if Dae-su fails to do so. Dae-su recalls that he attended the same high school with Woo-jin lee. Woo-jin Lee had a relationship of incestual nature with her sister Soo-ah. Dae- su had then moved to Seoul but not before spreading rumors about the relationship. Soo-ah had taken her own life after suspecting that she was pregnant. Apparently this had not been the case.
When Dae-su gets to the residence of Woo-jin's, he agrees that he may have unknowingly contributed to Soo-ah’s death. Woo-jin decides to disclose that Mi-do is Dae-su's real daughter. The daughter that Dae-su had seen in video clip footage had simply been a coax. Park uses different casts for the same role to show the age differentials in the same characters. For example, two casts Choi Min-sik and Oh Tae-kyung are used to portray the character of Dae su. Similarly, Yoo Ji-tae and Yoo Yeon-siok are used to portray Woon-jee Lee.
The third movie that is discussed is “Akmareul boatda ” by Kim Jee-woon in 2010. In this horror movie, Jang Kyung-chul plays the role of Choi Min-sik who is a blood-thirsty cannibal. He is the mastermind behind a series of gruesome murders. Choi Min-sik is so brutal in the manner in which he executes his murders in that his victims include even women and young children. The police have been unsuccessful in their attempts to capture this psychopath. He seems too cunning for them to catch up with him. This continues until the mutilated body of an ex-cop’s daughter, Joo-yeon, is discovered in terrifying state. Her fiancé Soo-hyun played by Lee Byung-hun is devasted because by her death very much. In addition the two were expecting a baby because she was pregnant at the time. This leads him to personally hunt down the perpetrator. Soo-hyun is a top secret agent, and he uses his detective skills to pursue the murderer and bring him to justice. He swears to do everything possible to catch this unfeeling killer and make him pay for his crimes.
This movie portrays how individuals when pushed to the limit can decide to get out of their morally acceptable code of conduct and behavior when they are faced with adverse situation. In this particular case, Soo-hyun’s loss of his fiancé drives him to do anything and everything necessary to seek justice for his murdered beloved one. The director shows that in the face of such cruelty being vetted out, people often abandon their sense of morally or professionalism (as Soo-hyun is a top secret agent) when overwhelmed with anger and pain due to such atrocities.
On the other hand, the serial killer exhibit similar great prowess in carrying out his diabolism. He slowly and devastatingly murders his victims without regard to their pain and suffering. He disposes their remains in a awful manner as if to pass an undisclosed message of violence and relentless fear among the bereaved. The motives for his killings are not disclosed because he maintains a low profile throughout the movie. The director of this play uses this character to make viewers stick to their seats as they wait to watch the terror unleashed by the killer. Kim Jee-woon uses ingenious stunts to portray the extent of the killer’s bestiality with each subsequent murder being more diabolic than the previous one.
In this film, we see Soo-hyun use his detective skills to hunt for this killer who is at large and still continues to vent out senseless animosity towards innocent people. The loss of his fiancé acts as sufficient motivation to hunt down the culprit. However, the approach that he uses to seek justice for his fiancés death is unexpectedly ruthless. Soo-hyun applies very brutal and dubious means to obtain information about the killer perhaps on the realization that he cannot get the serial killer without getting his hands dirty. As a result, the methods that he resorts to can in no way be differentiated from that used from used by the killer.
Surprisingly, the would-be protagonist of this horror movie lashes out senseless fear on the serial killer to the extent that viewers are left wondering if there is any actual difference in the character of the two. Soo-hyun after finally getting the serial killer assaults him mercilessly and leaves him almost dead with a bag of money. The serial killer awakes to find surprisingly still alive with an unexpectedly large sum of money. He fancies his fortunes without knowing that the detective planted a tracking device on his mouth while he was rendered unconscious. Soo-hyun then repeatedly, traces his prey and subjects him to relentless violence on him. It is as if the Soo-hyun has decided to vent out violence to the serial killer whenever he feels like doing so.
The movie can be described as a protagonist-turned-murderous. In his pursuit of the killer’s blood, Soo-hyun is gradually turned into a monster killer himself. This leads to an outright blood-bath as we can see some other people who are close to them getting either killed or hurt. This is a tale of two blood thirsty individuals who just required the right provocation to explore the dark side of their personalities. At times the audience is kept fearing for his life which he is endangering by pursuing the merciless killer. Throughout the film, the audiences well understand from the start the nature of the villain, but the director continues to astonish them with the monstrous character that he has created in the serial killer.
The movie is easy for viewers to relate to: there are people in the society who are blood-thirsty and uncaring about the pain and suffering that they cause to families and friends of their victims. This movie has extremely sadistic tendencies. It exploits the unfeeling nature of every person whether good or bad. The movie exposes that these tendencies are inherent among every person provided they are exposed to some extent of brutality.
In conclusion, Asian horror movies have evidently come of age and are giving stiff competition to other horror movies especially from western countries like the United States. The directors of the above discussed movies have shown great skill in not only thrilling and entertaining their viewers but also addressing various issues that they can relate to. The directors of these horror movies articulated issues that the general issues that viewers can relate to such as family disarray, clamor for vengeance, bestiality, diabolism among other things.
Works Cited
Armstrong, Richard B. The Rough Guide to Film. London: Rough Guides, 2010. Print.
Blandford, Steven, Barry K. Grant, and Jim Hillier. The Film Studies Dictionary. London: Arnold, 2011. Print.
Corrigan, Timothy. A Short Guide to Writing about Film. New York, United States: Longman, 2009. Print.
