Tale of Two

8/3/2019 Tale of Two

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>>12 SERIESISSUE #09SEPTEMBER 12


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ataleoftwo

sisters


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Cotets

p.1 Plot

p.4 The Cast

p.5 Trivia

p.9 Review

8


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It beis with Su-mi bei brouht to a psychiatrist. She isuresposive util a picture of her family is show i frotof her. She is take home by her father, Moo-hyeo, alo

with her timid sister, Su-yeo. There, they are met by theirdifcult stepmother, Eun-joo.That night Su-yeon awakes to nd somebody in her roomand she ees to her sister. Su-mi promises Su-yeon thatshe will always be there for her ad they fall asleep.Su-mi awakes after a horrifyi ihtmare i which ahostly woma that resembles their birth mother crawlsacross the oor and onto the bed. She nds that Su-yeonhas beu her period, as has her stepmother, o the verysame day. The irls look at some old photos, which revealthat Eun-joo was a doctor and a co-worker of Moo-hyeon.Su-mi sees bruises on Su-yeons arms and accuses Eun-joo.At dinner with guests (Eun-joos brother, Sun-kyu, and hiswife), Eun-joo acts s trangely. During dinner, Sun-kyuswife begins to choke and convulse on the oor. After theyleave, Eun-joo investigates around, only to be startled by ahad that reaches out as she tries to pick up a pi.Eun-joo insists that strange events have become frequentsice Su-mi ad Su-yeo retured. Her pet bird is slai adfound in Su-yeons bed. In a rage, she locks Su-yeon inthe wardrobe, ad after Su-yeo is freed, Moo-hyeo asksSu-mi why she is maki trouble.Su-mi isists that the stepmother harasses Su-yeo, lockiher i the closet. Moo-hyeo iforms her that Su-yeo isdead, ad that she is ot etti better. The scee eds

with Su-yeo emotioally screami.Su-mi wakes to nd her sister missing and believes shesees her stepmother drai aroud a bloody bathrouh the corridors of the house ad beati it. Su-mirus to the kitche to rab scissors to free her sister butEun-joo attempts to stop her by splashing boiling waterfrom the kettle onto her. A ght ensues and Su-mi isredered ucoscious.Moo-hyeon returns home to nd an injured Su-mi, howeverall evidece is suspiciously oe as are the stepmotherad ba.

The scee shifts, Su-mi is ow show as the stepmother.

She looks up i surprise, ad the camera rotates to showthe real stepmother, stadi i the door way, lookisympathetic. Whe the camera turs aroud aai, Su-miis back where she was. All memories ash through hermid that ive evidece of her illess.It is revealed that all alo Su-yeo really has bee dead,ad the stepmother was abset. Su-mi was acti as thestepmother and imagining her sister throughout the lmbecause of a severe dissociative idetity disorder.

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Plot

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p. 3

Su-mi then ashes back to a time when Eun-joo was a live-innurse caring for the girls sick mother. The girls sense thatEun-joo and Moo-hyeon are irting. Su-mi displays herdisapproval toward Eun-joo, who in turn takes her anger outo Su-yeo. Su-yeo the returs to her room ad collapsesonto her bed, in tears. Su-yeons mother is shown trying tocomfort her as she too starts cryi.

The ashback ends, and the stepmother sits alone in the

quiet home. A noise comes from Su-yeons room. When sheivestiates, the wardrobe opes ad from it crawls out thehost, presumably of either Su-yeo or her mother. The sceeeds ambiuously with a scream.

The ashback picks up again from when Su-yeon had fallenasleep, with her waki up ad discoveri her dead motheriside her wardrobe, who had haed herself with aarticle of clothing. Terried, Su-yeon shakes the body andscreams. A bottle of pills drops ad spills ope, while Su-yeoaccidetally pulls the wardrobe dow o top of herself,causi her to scream aai.

Various people i the house hear the ba, but ot thescream. Out of everyone, only Eun-joo (the nurse and futurestepmother) oes to ivestiate. She discovers Su-yeoscreaming for help and clawing at the wardrobe. Eun-jooleaves rather tha helpi Su-yeo, but the chaes hermid ad heads back for the scee. E route, she passesSu-mi comi out of her room to ivestiate the oise. Aargument starts between Eun-joo and Su-mi. During thearumet, Su-yeo is show whimperi uder the wardrobe.After the arumet, whe Su-mi tries to leave the house,Eun-joo stops her. Eun-joo warning Su-mi that she may cometo reret this momet, seemi to have lost all itetioof helpi Su-yeo after the arumet. Su-mi dismissesthe wari as osese ad arily marches out of the

house. Outside, Su-mi passes Moo-hyeo, who was oi toinvestigate. Moo-hyeon assumes that the noise was Su-mis,ad he eds up ot eteri the house.

The scene switches back to Su-yeon crying out for Su-mishelp, because Eun-joo decided not to go back and helpher. Su-yeo cotiues clawi at the wardrobe util sheevetually dies. Outside the house, Su-mi turs back loenough to exchange angry stares with Eun-joo, who isstanding on the balcony. The lm ends with Su-mi continuingto walk away from the house, but stoppi to pause adthik.As the credits scroll, a imae is show of Su-mi sitti o the

dock by the pond. She is in the same outt as in an earlierscee: The day she had come home ad had doe the samewith Su-yeo. However, this time, Su-mi is sitti aloe.


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IM SOO JUng AS SU-MIMOOn gEUn YOUng AS SU-YEOn

YEOM JEOng-AH AS EUn-JOOKIM KAP-SU AS MOO-HYEOn

p. 4

The Cast


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p. 5

Themovieisinspiredbyaf

amous

KoreanfolktaleJanhwa

Heungryeonjeon.

Intheoriginalstory,thesis

tersnames

areJanhwaandHonryeon

(Rose

FlowerandRedLotus).Inth

emovie,

theyareSu-miandSu-yeon

(stillmean

RoseandLotus).

Su-jeongLim,whoplayedS

u-mi

oriinallyauditionedforthe

roleof

Su-yeon.

Jee-woonKimoriinallywa

ntedgianna

JuntoplaySu-mi.

giannaJunrefusedtherole

ofSu-mi

becauseshethouhtthescri

ptwastoo

scary.Ironically,hernextpr

ojectwas

anotherhorrorlm,

4Inyongshiktak,

whichwastranslatedintoEnlishas

TheUninvited.Coincident

ally,The

Uninvitedisthetitleofthe

American

remakeofthislm.


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Trivia

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There

wasa

girlun

derthe

kitche

nsink.

p.7

There was airl uder thekitche sik.


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p.8


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Cofused?

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Korea is providi oe or two ood movies of late (mostnotably Chan-wook Parks Oldboy which garnered huge criticalacclaim recently and took a tidy sum at the box ofce too), andnow to DVD, after a brief theatrical run, comes A Tale of TwoSisters, an atmospheric chiller that was Koreas third highestrossi movie of 2003.

Based on a Korean folk tale Janghwa Heungryeonjeon KimJee-woons lm follows the story of two sisters who returnto their father and stepmothers house after spending sometime i hospital. Su-mi is the eldest of the two, ad it is shethat seems to harbour the most resetmet to her father ad(especially) her stepmother. Youer sister, Su-yeo is morewithdraw ad is happy to be led aroud by her bi sis, but othe rst night of sleeping at the house, a strange presence triesto enter Su-yeons room and, frightened, she goes to sleep withSu-mi i her room. That iht Su-mi dreams of bei i a aloe

in a forest, covered in blood, before she wakes and sees ahost eter the room i oe of the most creepy momets ofAsian cinema since The Eyes spooks jumped out of our screens.

The ext mori, relatioships i the house row icreasilystraied, as the irls become more withdraw as they piefor their dead mother, ad the stepmother rows icreasilymore bullish towards the sisters i order to ai cotrol (it alsodoesnt help that all three women spookily get their periods allon the same day). Theres also the fact that the house seemsto be hauted ad could be hidi some siister secrets i itsshadows.

A Tale of Two Sisters is a beautiful lm to look at, even on thesmall scree. The ciematoraphy ad the productio desiof the lm are one of the rst things you notice as the girlsru aroud the ew house, sitti o the ede of a wharf oa lake or picking red owers. Its a lm full of colour, whetherit is frequent ashes of vivid red set alongside contrasting coolblues, or the purple ad ree motifs, clearly a lot of thouhthas oe ito setti the riht emotioal mood for each scee.gui for emotio over plotti, Kim Jee-woo itroducesus to the characters slowly, happy to linger in the familysdysfunction as the girls attempt to ignore their stepmother.

The unease builds slowly as were not really quite sure exactlywhats happening within the family unit, although there areobviously some uspoke family secrets that eed to be aired.

Yet this is a ghost story so requisite chills need to be deliveredtoo, aloside the emotioal themes. Kim Jee-woo is moretha able to step up to the challee, thakfully as a scaryscene involving someone creeping into Su-yeons room isquickly superseded by the rst genuinely unnerving realhost appearace i the room. From here o i, there is maya ood spie-tili momet (the irl uder the kitche sikis played out to perfectio) as the truth radually beis touravel (or does it?), ad Su-mi becomes icreasily metally

ustable.

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The lm is greatly helped by very strong performances all round includingGeun-yeong Mun as Su-yeon, but its Su-jeong Lim who really shines as Su-miand holds the lm together, or as well as she can as the lm becomes more andmore frameted. Towards the ed we are thrust ito ail-biti momets oftension and suspense as ashbacks, dream sequences and events from differentpoints of view are displayed in a manner that makes it difcult ourselves to

know what is really happening? What or who is the ghost? What is imaginary?What is real? What is all a just bad dream?

Cofused? You will be, but that could also be part of the pla. By allowius to see throuh the slihtly skewed visio of the elder sister Su-mi, ourow disorietatio adds to the meace, creati a true sese of moutihorror, ad it may take a secod viewi to truly reward i the same way thatMemento needed to be seen again to make sure the puzzle pieces really did ttoether.

Its not a lm for your average slasher lm fan as its not afraid to take itstime i setti up the set-up, ad with its ope arrative type of storytelli,

it wont please those who want every little detail spelt out. If youre expectingsomething as quick and furiously punk as The Ring or the Eye you may bea little disappointed, as this lm is more prepared to take its time and let theemotions carry the lm rather than the plot, and in that case it requires morepatiece from us viewers.


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p.12


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p. 13

Shell havea cow if we

mess withher precious.

Id hate to

see that.


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p. 14

Shell havea cow if we

mess withher precious.

Id hate to

see that.


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12 seriesIssue ie

a tale of two sisters

Tale of Two

Documents

Transcript of Tale of Two