Goksung

Plot synopsis:
A Japanese man has recently arrived at a little village in the mountains of South Korea, living in a secluded house. A mysterious disease starts spreading among the villagers, causing a rash which precedes violent murderous outbreaks followed by stupor and eventually death.
Police officer Jong-goo, who is investigating the case, meets a mysterious young woman called Moo-myeong (“no name” in Korean), who tells him about the Japanese stranger, and later disappears. A local hunter tells Jong-goo that he saw the near-naked stranger eating a deer, with glowing red eyes. Jong-goo is unsettled, as he has had dreams about this stranger, which the hunter had described to him. He enlists the help of another police officer, and a Japanese-speaking priest to serve as translator, and they investigate the stranger's house while he is away. The other police officer finds pictures of the infected and murdered residents and their belongings. He is too shocked to say anything to the others. The stranger's house guard dog attacks the priest and Jong-goo. The stranger arrives and pacifies the dog, and the other three leave.
The police officer tells Jong-goo of what he saw, and hands over a shoe which belongs to Jong-goo's daughter, Hyo-jin. Soon, Hyo-jin becomes sick and displays similar symptoms as the other infected villagers. Jong-goo makes his way to the stranger’s house with the priest in anger, but finds that the pictures and evidence have been burned. Infuriated, he destroys the stranger's worship room and kills the dog when it attacks him, ordering the stranger to leave the village.
Distraught about Hyo-jin's condition, Jong-goo's mother-in-law seeks help from a shaman, Il-gwang. As Il-gwang performs a ritual to exorcise the demon, Jong-goo finds his daughter in pain and interrupts the ritual, taking her to a hospital instead. The following day, he gathers his friends to hunt down the stranger, believing that the stranger is responsible for the disease and murders. Jong-goo and his friends go after the stranger, and eventually end up hitting him with their vehicle. They dispose of his body as Moo-myeong watches from the hills. When Jong-goo returns home, he finds that Hyo-jin's condition has seemingly improved. Il-gwang suspects they killed the wrong person; he later encounters Moo-myeong, and starts vomiting blood. He calls Jong-goo, telling him that Moo-myeong is the demon.
Jong-goo finds Moo-myeong near his house. She requests Jong-goo to believe her, telling him she had set a trap for the demon, but the trap will not work if Jong-goo goes back to his house. Confused and hesitant, Jong-goo eventually leaves to save his family, but Moo-myeong grabs him, her skin turning a ghostly white as he notices that she is wearing the personal items of some of the victims. He pulls himself away, and as he crosses his home's threshold, the floral trap withers.
The priest encounters the still-alive Japanese stranger in a cave. After being photographed by the stranger, the priest witnesses the stranger evolving into a demon. Back at his house, Jong-goo arrives to find that Hyo-jin has murdered their family. He calls out to her, but she stabs him and falls into a stupor. Il-gwang arrives at Jong-goo's house and takes photographs of them, and while returning to his car, unintentionally drops a box filled with photos of the other victims.
As Jong-goo lies dying in his home, he sees visions of happier times with his daughter and assures her he will protect her.

Tags: paranormal, murder, flashback

Review:
It's like one of those optical illusions or Escher drawings that appear to describe a physical object, but in fact don't make physical sense.Accordingly, whether one enjoys this movie or not boils down to whether one can be content with a movie that is technically well-made (cinematography, acting, costumes, etc.), but (a) its plot makes no sense, and (b) it is told in a deceptive way as to lure you into thinking that the plot would make sense if only you gave the matter sufficient thought, thus leaving you with a lingering, irritating feeling of dissatisfaction and confusion.And maybe this is precisely the point of the movie: rather than telling a story, its purpose is to instill in the audience a feeling of confusion in the face of a sequence of events that almost, but not quite, makes sense.
Both film-makers understand the "big secret" of story telling which is, if you can present your story in such a way that the viewer feels he or she is sharing the experience with the protagonist, you can tell any story you like and the viewer will just keep going.I will not even try to provide an explanation for what THE WAILING means, other than to re-quote the writer/director himself who, in numerous interviews on his film, said enigmatically "I began to wonder about the nature of God -- what if he was not always good?" Recommended on many levels.
Instead, we, the viewers, are taken through a story rich with mystery, great characters and their struggles, dark atmosphere with well designed and amazingly crafted horror scenes that make your blood run cold.
One might find The Wailing a bit boring because the film is a slow burner and not constructed as most of modern horror films, or might find the film too long (running time 2h 36min) but if you are patient man it will pay off by the end.Who says that the horror genre is dead.
All of the elements in the film which were so compelling and enjoyable are not allowed to coalesce together in the end, and the actions and motives of the major characters – the Japanese man, Jong-gu and his daughter, the shaman, the nameless girl – are ultimately rendered disparate, abstract and illogical.
I can keep on going on how bad this movie is compared to the reviews you read here, but then I waste even more time on this garbage.By the way, are the police in Korea all morons, who scream like little children and run away when they see people make scary noises??
If this was made as some serious drama or horror movie I can't understand why they would have the police who are central characters act like teenage girls in a Friday 13th movie.The scenes that are made to be a suspenseful fail because of the sissy behavior of our hero cops.
Goksung (original title) or The Wailing (English title), the new film from South Korean director and writer Hong-jin Na (known for Chugyeogja - Chaser - 2008 and Hwanghae - The Yellow Sea - 2010), is already considered one of the great works in the horror genre, addressing a macabre part of eastern culture on legends, curses, evil spirits and mysticism, being one of the highlights at the Cannes Film Festival.Coincidentally after the arrival of a stranger, a strange disease begins to spread in the small village of Goksung, triggering a series of brutal murders.
When his daughter, Hyo-jin (played by Kim Hwan-hee), begins to feel the strange symptoms of the disease, he has to fight against time to solve the mysterious case and save her life.With a rhythmic narrative, The Wailing presents a folk story associated with Eastern mysticism and also the occultism, marked by elements of mystery, horror and supernatural, as guardians, demons and shamans, and the unfolding of the plot gradually gets more intense and disquieting contours.
Here it is worth mentioning the great performance of Do Won Kwak in the caricatured role of the lazy, fumbling and fearful police officer, though well intentioned.With a competent job of the cast, efficient direction creating an atmosphere that blends mystery, horror and comedy as well as providing much reflection with an end open to different interpretations and also for its originality, The Wailing is one of the most significant movies within the genre in recent years..
I loved The Chaser, The Yellow Sea and of course Memories of Murder and while Horror isn't really my genre I'm willing to go on a hell-raising roller-coaster ride to unravel the frightening intrigues that this film promises.From all the reviews, the forum discussing what really happened, YouTube "spoiler" videos clarifying the loose ends and the chatter in the cinema when the credits start to roll, it is quite clear that the audience are mostly left greatly mystified rather than delivered by a well-resolved end moment when pieces of the puzzle start to fall together in a satisfying manner.Fans of mystery understand the need for red herrings, unexplained characters and details that throw the scent off and suggest multiple possibilities, but in this movie, they remain glaring plot holes and still don't make sense even by the end when the answer to the mystery is all but apparent.
More like leads down the garden, or rather, mountain path...It is especially frustrating as the movie is long, there's little build-up to the horrors, few techniques that could be effective in moving the story-telling along were used and the terrifying moments become repetitious and drawn-out.
Many of these repetitious scenes could have been cut to focus instead on the background to some of the key characters, not only to increase audience understanding of the families, the cultural context, religious beliefs and superstitions but to help to make the final conclusions comprehensible in flashback....that "oh I missed that bit about character X, it explains why things turn out this way, etc." moment.Acting was really good, which is the high point of the movie for me.That's what the 5 is for.Shame the talent wasn't put to more effective use, as the story has great potential..
Who might be the demon that is bringing sickness to Goksung?"Goksung" is South Korean horror movie with a long, melodramatic and messy ghost story.
Moreover, great atmosphere is pointless if you don't actually do anything with it, and this film didn't -- at least not until the last fifteen minutes or so.Another thing that made it difficult to sit through once (and nearly unbearable to sit through a second time) was the lack of a "good" character whom I truly liked.
I know that it's a thing to be annoyed with some characters in a horror movie ("Too Stupid To Live" is a trope for a reason), but this is the first film where I actively cheered for the evil side to win before the end.
After catapulting himself into the league of South Korea's brightest up-n-coming filmmakers with his extremely polished & mercilessly violent directional debut and then following it up with another thriller that was more or less a misfire, director Na Hong-jin makes a splendid return to form after six years of inactivity, and delivers a cinema that's drenched in blood, sickness & devilry.The story of The Wailing unfolds in a small South Korean village where a mysterious illness begins to spread & claim many lives after the arrival of a strange Japanese man in the nearby mountains.
Investigating the case is a police officer who becomes all the more involved after his own daughter begins exhibiting similar symptoms and enlists the help of a shaman to solve the mystery before its too late.Written & directed by Na Hong-jin, The Wailing finds the budding filmmaker stepping into the realms of supernatural horror and features numerous elements that made his first film an instant classic.
But the two most measured inputs comes from Jun Kunimura & Chin Woo-hee who play the Japanese stranger & a mysterious woman respectively.On an overall scale, The Wailing is a fresh, fascinating & ferocious entry in the world of horror that makes terrific use of its atmosphere & supernatural elements to deliver a thoroughly unsettling & consistently engaging experience.
This movie is a revelation, being a fan of Ha Hong-Jin's who had previously directed two of the best thrillers of recent memory (The Chaser and The Yellow Sea) i had great expectations for this but as I was watching I knew that this is going to be something else, it looks like an urban legend of some kind but I'm not sure, the exorcism scene in this made me jump from my seat.
The movie takes place in a small village in south Korea, a policeman is investigating a series of murders but then more strange things start to happen, people losing their minds, Houses burning, suicides...
and at the center of all this mystery is The Japenese Man "the stranger" and the mysterious Woman in White, I don't want to spoil the rest of the movie for you but it's really one of the most original and most Clever mystery/horror films ever made in my opinion especially in the midst of all the Hollywood recycled movies, rip offs and remakes that strangely make a sh!t load of money at the box office but films like this, ones that challenge viewers both mentally and emotionally, are completely ignored by movie goers, I'm sure Horror fans will consider this film a miracle and non Horror fans will enjoy it even more because I think it works really well as a Mystery/Thriller, the characters are well developed and you start to care for them especially the Protagonist and his daughter who deliver stunning performances and the cinematography is spot on.
Since this movie doesn't get a wider release in North American and European cinemas despite being a massive success at the South Korean box office, I urge you to buy it on BluRay or DVD as soon as you can to experience this unforgettable masterpiece.The story of this mystery and horror film takes place in a remote and rather poor Korean village where a series of strange events occurs.
Police officer Jong-goo meets a mysterious woman dressed in white who seems to give him clues to solve the strange murder cases and save his daughter but at certain points in the story, she seems strangely passive and might even try to fool the main character.
Obviously, there is the mysterious Japanese stranger who only communicates in his mother tongue and whose recent appearance in the remote Korean community evokes numerous questions.The combination of an extremely professional director, an intriguing script and story that requests multiple views, a cast consisting of young and veteran actors who put all their heart and soul into their performances, an intense yet realistic atmosphere supported by a haunting soundtrack, scary settings and costumes and gloomy light techniques and a great production that takes its time to develop a perfect pace without any flaws such as shaky cameras or unrealistic special effects make this film a masterpiece of the contemporary art of film-making.
Hoping they can figure out what is really going on, and do what they can to protect themselves.He reveals, to them, that the suspected Japanese man is actually a ghost- or more accurately a demon...and he's out to get the Sergeant for wronging him.What follows is nothing short of an epic battle of dark vs light, as the two shaman's face off, ritualistically, in an attempt to hex each other to death.But, perhaps things are not exactly as they seem...just when you think it is over...As someone who is interested in Shamanism, I really enjoyed this film!
If you enjoy South Korean cinema, or just plain good cinema, I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy "The Wailing." It was directed by the same filmmaker who made "The Chaser."Part thriller, part horror movie, the story involves ghosts, possession, a strange illness, and lots of wailing.
The Wailing (Gokseong in Korean) is a 2016 South Korean horror movie directed by Na Hong-Jin. The movie is set in a little village in the mountains of South Korea and it's about a police officer named Jong- Goo (Kwak Do-hon) who investigates a series of mysterious killings and illnesses.
He see a girl with white dress in front of one of the victims house that she claims she knows who is responsible for this disease and killing, a Japanese stranger who lives in a cabin in the woods...I highly recommend The Wailing to horror movie fans who liked movies Rosemary's Baby, I Saw the Devil and The Exorcist.
Like all great horror films, this one shows how fear builds up from ignorant rumors and gossip as the villagers of this backwater town start to lose their grip on reality.When incompetent police officer Jon-Goo is hired to investigate the multiple murders of man and a woman, he finds the killer covered in blood and shaking at the scene, as though in some kind of trance.
The one thing I have come to love about Foreign films especially Korean ones is how much raw emotion and talent they can portray in a movie with actors I know nothing about and that they can pull you into caring deeply about these people.
This review of The Wailing is spoiler free**** (4/5)AFTER HIS STUNNINGLY and shockingly assured debut, The Chaser back in 2008 which finally dimmed the burning candle that was left alight after The Silence of the Lambs shocked audiences, and after his grim, gripping and excruciatingly violent crime thriller The Yellow Sea. Korean writer/director Na Hong-jin turns to horror which has a rather ambitious mixture of police procedural drama, part visceral and demonic horror, sometimes hilarious black comedy with a couple of laugh out loud parts, and finally part socio-theological allegory as you're trying to figure out some of the more difficult and somewhat confusing parts of this clever screenplay which leads to a shocking mystery towards the end.
Until Jong seeks the help of Il-Gwang (Hwang Jong-min) the village shaman, unfortunately the film starts to flag a little during the second act perhaps due to the excessive time spent on the exorcism ritual, but it's essential stuff as this is used for setting up a third and final which leads a finale which is both genuinely shocking and ingeniously inevitable, as this will leave you with an unshakeable sense of dread.Na Hong-jin keeps with the traits through and through firstly starting with a scene with Jong and his young daughter and it seems that she has been cured from the almost futile illness which is an odd switch in tone but it's nice to be included, but as the third act continues the thrills and mysterious escalate.
It is directed by "Hong-jin" Na who previously have made best Korean movies like "yellow sea" and "chaser" ( Watch these masterpieces too , if you didn't watch yet ) .It is one of the best horror movies i have seen in long time, it doesn't have jump scares.
While I didn't quite taste the amazingness after watch the movie, the analysis around my head after few days justify the lack of ending.Focus on a village that attacked by mysterious plague; when people suddenly turns crazy and murder his/her family, a police investigates the case while his daughter is slowly corrupted by the plague.My first salutation is given to the main character, the police.
It's probably best if you watch it twice to get all details.For those who loves a Korean horror film with hidden details and lots of mystery, I feel The Wailing can be one of the best choices.
The Wailing/Goksung (2016): If you are a horror fan then you must be really aware of South Korean horrors because they are best at it.Ever year they release lot of horrors and most of them impresses.This year they already delivered a hit with Train to Busan and now its time for The Wailing.The Wailing already released with widespread critical acclaim and received standing ovation at film festivals.So how is The Wailing?Plot: In the small village Goksung in South Korea, police officer Jong-Goo (Do-won Kwak) investigates bizarre murders caused by a mysterious disease.
The movie runs a bit over two and a half hours, but it actually manages to remain interesting and captivating throughout the course of this time frame.The story is about a strange disease that spreads in a small rural settlement in South Korea.
A local policeman becomes involved in the case and finds himself deep in a very strange mystery, which involves supernatural elements and it is a race against time to find the culprit and the source of this bizarre sickness.I will say that the story is good and interesting, especially because director Hong-jin Na managed to build up the movie in such a way that the audience is given bits and pieces of information throughout the course of the movie, and thus keeps the audience in the dark and trying to put the pieces together themselves and trying to figure out who is the cause of it all.And just when you think you have it all figured out, something happens and the movie takes an unforeseen turn, which just further keeps the audience on edge and trying to make sense of it all.
Hong-jin's direction is deceptively simple, without too much stylistic ornaments, but achieving a perfect harmony between movement, image and symbolism; the production design is so natural that I couldn't notice where the set ends and where the Korean cottage begins; and the actors make an excellent work in their roles, highlighting Kwak Do-won, who makes the main character's evolution completely credible, and the girl Kim Hwan-hee, who faces physical and emotionally difficult scenes with a devastating aplomb.
And like those great movies of the 50s and 60s, Gok-seung has a surprisingly deep undertow, reflecting those American science fiction films in the way that the characters must struggle with the question of how exactly we can tell the difference between good and evil.