- Directed by Jang Jae-hyun
- Written by Jang Jae-hyun
- Stars Choi Min-sik, Kim Go-eun, Lee Do-hyun
- Run Time: 2 Hours, 14 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2O193v3jkM
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is long, but it didn’t seem like it. At several points, it seems like things are going to wrap up, then something else happens. It’s set in a world where everyone, at least everyone in this movie, just accepts that the rituals, ghosts, demons, and so forth are real. So we’re pulled along with them easily as all this stuff happens. We liked it quite a bit.
Spoilery Synopsis
Lee and her male colleague arrive in America to talk to an extremely rich real-estate investor. They stop at the hospital and she whistles at a baby. The baby was born with some kind of illness, and these two have come to do a Korean folk remedy to cure the child. She says the baby’s father and grandfather probably suffer from the same affliction.
Lee explains that she’s a shaman. Park, her client, explains his family situation; his brother killed himself. She senses that the shadow of Park’s grandfather is hanging around the estate. One of his ancestors is complaining about the discomfort he’s experiencing in the grave.
They dig up the recently-deceased grandmother’s coffin. It’s still dry, and the bones look fine. There are some metal objects inside, and that causes discomfort for the dead. They lay the skeleton out on a white cloth, and the older man says she’s missing her dentures. Who has them? One of the little boys fessed up that he took them.
The old man, Kim, explains that he’s a geomancer, who is a feng shui expert. Lee and her assistant stop by to talk. She explains about the family’s spiritual affliction. All of them laugh about the client’s money and how much he’s paying.
Mr. Park wants to dig up his grandfather’s grave, as it’s been nearly a hundred years. He doesn’t want the coffin opened before the cremation, and Kim doesn’t like that. The whole group drives way up into the mountains and walks through the woods to the unmarked gravesite. There are foxes everywhere.
Kim tastes the dirt and looks out at the view from the mountaintop. The site was recommended by a famous monk of the time, Gisune. Kim quits and walks away; he wants nothing to do with this. This is a grave that shouldn’t be meddled with. “If we mess with a grave like this, everyone, from the Geomancer on down to the laborers, will die one by one!”
Back in the city, Park talks about his sick son. Kim thinks Park is hiding something, but he begs Kim to save his son. Kim says that crazy old monk has some kind of secret purpose in choosing that site. Lee suggests doing a purification ritual simultaneously with moving the grave.
The ritual is quite involved, with five workers and five dead pigs; it’s all very scientific. There are drums, knives, and dancing. It goes on and on as the workers dig up the grave.
The coffin is made of Juniper wood, something usually only used by Royals. They load it into the Hearse and head for the crematorium. One of the workers kills a snake, which screams. Suddenly, the weather changes, and it starts to rain; the grave has been disrespected. Kim tells Park that they can’t cremate the body on a rainy day, cause that would be bad.
Park and his mother talk, and it’s clear that they haven’t told Kim the whole truth. They put the coffin in the hospital’s morgue to wait for the rain to end.
Kim goes to a temple near the gravesite, and it’s been there for more than a hundred years. It was founded by Gisune, and there are rumors about him; there might be a treasure buried in that grave. People have tried to rob the grave in the past, and all have failed.
Meanwhile, back at the hospital, the mortician’s assistant tries to open the coffin, and something gets out. Lee walks in and passes out as the spirit passes her. She’s admitted to the hospital; she knows what happened.
At the Park house, Parks father opens up the door to let the spirit inside. The spirit wants some revenge, and kills the old man. Lee and Kim talk about possible ways to banish the spirit. She starts the ritual and summons the spirit. He wants to take his family with him to the grave.
Kim tells Park that the coffin has been opened. It’s too late, as the spirit is already there and possesses him. When Kim and Lee arrive, Park vomits blood and talks about being an old-time Japanese soldier. He then breaks his own neck.
Kim warns that the baby, way over in the USA, is the next one in danger. Kim gets Grandma Park to approve an immediate cremation of the coffin. The spirit stands over the baby, ready to kill, but as the coffin burns, he fades away.
Crisis averted/problem solved. Right?
Kim goes to see the worker who killed that snake, and he’s in bad shape. He cries tears of blood. He goes back to the gravesite and finds… another coffin that was under the first one, this time, standing up vertically. Mr. Go, the mortician, arrives with Lee and her helper to dig it up. This one is wrapped with barbed wire. Lee wants to leave it alone, but Kim insists they do something with it. When they exhume it completely, all the foxes run away.
They drive the coffin to the nearby temple and surround it with rice. Grandma Park arrives and says she doesn’t know a thing about a second coffin. Her father was famous for selling out the country; he was a traitor, not even Korean. They all go inside for some noodles, leaving the coffin alone; they’ll burn it when the sun rises.
Weird things happen, and then they go out to find the coffin has burst open. A giant creature talks to Lee, and she convinces him that she’s his subordinate. This one isn’t a spirit, it’s some kind of nine-foot tall undead warrior. As the sun comes up, it bursts into flames. Afterwards, everyone goes to the hospital.
Lee’s helper, Bong-gil, is badly injured. She says that thing had a shadow and left footprints. “It’s something that should never have existed in this country.” Lee finds out that Bong-gil is possessed by the bad thing. “My Master killed 10,000 people and became a divine entity.”
Meanwhile, Old Mr. is back digging at the gravesite again. He finds… another body, this time without a coffin. There was a terrible war criminal general buried there, and the local monks buried Mr. Park on top of him to throw off grave robbers. The “demon” is only there to protect an iron stake.
Lee says they cannot get rid of a Japanese ghost. Kim, Lee, and Go return to the grave and spread out live fish to lure in the spirit. As night falls, a hand reaches up and takes the fish. In the hospital Bong-gil starts chewing.
As Lee talks to the monster in Japanese, Go and Kin find the hole it crawled out of. They dig desperately, but they can’t find the iron stake that binds the creature to this area. The demon says he’s been there for more than five hundred years, and now he wants Kim’s liver. Lee pours horses’ blood on the demon, and that burns him.
They all figure out that there is no iron stake. He’s bound to all five elements of that area. They use the five elements against the creature and defeat him. They rush Kim to the hospital, but he’s in very bad shape.
Back in the hospital, Bong-gil wakes up. So does Kim. Everyone goes back to their normal lives– but nothing is going to be normal for them now.
Kim’s granddaughter gets married, and all the characters attend.
Brian’s Commentary
Korean folk rituals are even weirder than ours! Who knew feng shui was more than choosing the right style of furniture?
The interesting thing about this one is all the (supposedly authentic) Korean rituals that accompany the plot. None of the characters ever doubt that the ghosts are real which speeds along the plot, not that it’s a short film.
Due to the weird alienness of the plot, we had no idea what was going to happen, which was fun. It looked like it was wrapping up three different times, but no, it just kept piling on the trouble.
It’s really long, but it’s got lots of interesting bits.
Kevin’s Commentary
This was surprisingly complex and multi-layered. I kept thinking it was about done, then something else would happen. It’s one that you have to pay attention to, to interpret the foreign aspects and read the subtitles. I really enjoyed it.