Brief Story Line
A well known shaman named Hwa-rim (Kim Go-eun - Yumi's Cells TV series, Tune in For Love etc) and her partner Bong-gil (Lee Do-hyun - Death's Game TV series, The Glory TV series etc) were requested by a wealthy Korean American Mr. Park (Kim Jae-cheol - The King's Affection TV series etc) to help lift curse on his family. Hwa-rim sensed that the family was haunted by their ancestor from his grave.
With the help from Fengshui master Kim Sang-deok (Choi Min-sik - Oldboy, Big Bet TV series) and undertaker director Yeong-geun (Yoo Hae-jin - Confidential Assignment, The Night Owl etc), they all tried to exhume and move the ancestor's grave. But to their surprise, the location was not what they expected and even Mr. Kim was really worried. Despite their doubts, everyone decided to go ahead with the process. Unfortunately an evil spirit was unleashed and brought danger to the whole family and people involved.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Before we went ahead with seeing this movie, my wife already asked the opinions from several people who have seen it to find out if she could stand the film. All of them said that it was not the kind of horror which would totally scare her. So we saw this with a bit of confidence and we were pleased that it was indeed not as terrifying as other movies in the genre. There were only few horrifying images in the first half and the second half was not even scary. It just had a bit of intensity and suspense.
For a horror movie, this one seemed to focus on the works of Korean shaman (and their rituals to rid evil spirits) and fengshui master. I think it's comparable to Catholic priest doing exorcism or other shamans in various countries (even Indonesian have them as well). Meanwhile the evil spirits were not the kind that would terrorize you throughout the whole movie and only once we were surprised by a jump scare scene. The sound effects though were pretty good, but I thought the background music did not really provide the desired effect. I had seen other films that were able to give me goosebumps from its music.
The cast here though were pretty brilliant. I thought Lee Do-hyun was quite amazing especially during the scene in hospital, while Choi Min-sik and Kim Go-eun were convincing in their roles. Yoo Hae-jin as usual provided a bit of comical side. There were few minor support roles here but none left a deep enough impression to me. The film was written and directed by Jang Jae-hyun who was experienced in making horror/thriller movies like the highly regarded The Priests and Shava: The Sixth Finger. Btw the movie itself had a very long duration of 134 minutes that did not have any mid or post end credit scenes.
I said above that the movie was pretty successful in Indonesia as at the time I wrote this post, it already surpassed the tickets admission of Parasite, making it the most seen South Korean film of all time till date. Which actually made me a bit confused since I personally felt this to be less superior than that movie in term of quality. Even as horror film, it was not as horrifying as others. I could understand the success it had in South Korea by making to the list of 2024 highest grossing films in the country. But I guess Indonesians always have a thing for horror movies (All time top 10 Indonesian films were mostly filled with horror genre).
Overall this was an OK horror movie. It was not a totally terrifying film that would keep us feeling scared all the time. Although it did give us few horrifying scenes in the first half, but the change of tone in the second half was not exactly what we had in mind. It was still quite suspenseful but we both could understand the disappointment of horror movie lovers as it failed to live up to their expectations. Even my wife felt it more like the Friday the 13th movies. Don't get me wrong though, as I said above, we were pleased that it was not that scary, but with so many people saw this, I expected more. So if you are like us and have not seen the movie yet, you could give it a try and see what the fuzz about. But if you are horror buff, then likely you would wish for a scarier one.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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