This Koran horror tale is part ghost story and part twisted stepparent tale. Soo-mi (Su-jeong Lim, upcoming I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OK) and Soo-yeon (Geun-yeoung Mun) have just returned from a mental institution after the death of their mother. Their father (Kap-su Kim) brings them to their country home where there stepmother Eun-joo (Jung-ah Yum, THREE... EXTREMES) lives.
Soo-mi and Soo-yeon are frightened of their stepmother, whose boisterous and blunt behavior is unnerving. Soo-mi watches over her meek and often silent younger sister like a mother, protecting her from potential torment of their stepmother. Making things scarier, a ghost begins appearing throughout the house. Soo-mi tries to explain the situation to her father, but he seems unaware of what is going on. Or maybe none of this is as it seems.
Director Ji-woon Kim (3 EXTREMES II) is a filmmaker with a great deal of patience, taking the right amount of time to set up his characters and build the tension. When the twists and turns come they are unexpected, because of the way the story has played out prior to certain revelations. At first the new information will seem impossible and make the film seem a bit confusing from that point on, however all issues are tied up by the end when we learn everything that has transpired.
An interesting element is that the plot mirrors the mental state of the characters, or one character chiefly. Mental torment is often addressed in the horror genre and this film finds yet another way to tell a common tale with a new twist.
For fans of Asian horror, the ghost sections will seem very familiar, resembling the look and feel of JU-ON and RINGU. Though the look seems copied, the reason why it still works is because director Ji-woon Kim knows why it works. The recent flood of American remakes takes the look, but don’t take the timing that makes the sequences so scary. A TALE OF TWO SISTERS isn’t pushing the boundaries of Asian horror, but it still is a compelling and creepy tale that chills the bones just right.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
