Directed by: Hong-Jin Na
Written by: Hong-Jin Na
Starring: Jun Kunimura, Jung-Min Hwang, Do Won Kwak
2 hours, 36 Minutes, Korean Subtitled
Jong-goo gets up early to get dressed. He’s a policeman, and he receives a call that the ginseng farmer’s wife has died. He gets to the crime scene, and there’s lots of screaming and wailing. There’s a man covered in blood and blisters, whom the police already have handcuffed. They don’t know why he did it, and he’s not talking. The other detectives go inside to examine the crime scene, and there’s a mess inside that looks something like a big nest.
Credits roll.
A hunter has an accident and falls down a hill. When he awakens, he sees a man in a loin cloth digging through his pack. Then the man bends down and starts eating the deer– raw. Then we flash away, and the two cops are talking about the story about the man in the loin cloth. “All this happened after that Japanese man arrived.” The power suddenly goes out and they see what looks like a naked woman standing outside in the storm, but there’s no one there when they go look.
That night, a neighbor’s house burns down, and the survivors are all acting crazy. Jong-goo notices the Japanese man in the crowd watching it all. He remembers that the owner of the house is the same as the naked women they saw last night. The next morning, they find all the survivors dead, either stabbed or hanged. The woman stabbed the two men and then hanged herself. There’s a new story that the Japanese man had raped her, driving her insane. She was also covered in a rash and boils, and muttering gibberish, just like the murderer in the first scene. Jong-goo thinks the rash is an important link. While guarding the crime scene, a strange young woman tells him to watch out for the Japanese man, as he wants to suck people’s blood dry. He’s then chased by the Japanese man, who has red eyes. Jong-goo wakes up; at least some of that was a dream.
The next morning, Jong-goo’s daughter is very sick. They talk to the hunter with the deer story, and he, too, ties things in with the old Japanese man. They go with him into the woods, and see where it happened. The man get struck by lightning and they take him to the hospital. While there, they see the first murderer going into seizures and bursting with blood as he dies. He’s got some really nasty kind of disease. They see other people with similar markings, including Jong-goo’s daughter, who is hallucinating about a strange man who wants into her room. She’s perfectly fine the next morning, but Grandma thinks the little girl is possessed and wants to hire a shaman.
They eventually get to the old man’s house and find a very unusual shrine inside, as well as hundreds of photos of dead people. The Japanese man returns and catches them there. Jong-goo finds one of his daughter’s shoes there. Somehow, this all ties together, and Jong-goo is determined to figure it out. Who is really behind all this death?
Commentary
It’s slow-paced and really long, but never gets boring. There are some beautiful scenic shots of rural Korea. Storywise, it really capitalizes on the Koreans’ historical hatred and fear of the Japanese. The shaman and his rituals are great!
Humor: The guy falling down the hill from losing his balance carrying a deer, then falling down the same hill a second time and getting hit by lightning. The daughter catching Jong-goo and his wife having sex in the car. The zombie with the broken rake stuck in his head. It’s not a funny movie at all, but these little scenes do make it a lot more entertaining.