A Tale Of Two Sisters
(Janghwa, Hongryeon)
114 minutes,
Korea (2003), 15
Average user rating 
(4.7 / 104 votes)
(4.7 / 104 votes)
Korean chiller about two girls struggling with their icy stepmother and a pervading sense of supernatural unease in their isolated home
Director:
A Tale Of Two Sisters (Janghwa, Hongryeon) Review
Korean chiller about two girls struggling with their icy stepmother and a pervading sense of supernatural unease in their isolated home
A Tale Of Two Sisters is arguably the most creepy tale to emerge from east Asia since Hideo Nakata's much-imitated 1998 masterpiece Ringu. The spine-chilling moments occur regularly in the first half of the film before giving way to somewhat histrionic moments and baffling, protracting twists. But even they don't undermine its power.
Loosely based on a Korean folk-story, the film mostly plays out as an extended flashback after a prologue that features a doctor asking a seemingly mute girl "Can you tell me about that day?"
Su-Mi (Lim) and her younger sister Su-Yeon (Mun) arrive home with their father Mu-Hyun (Kim) after they've spent some time in hospital for an unspecified malady. However, it soon becomes clear that mental illness is at the heart of their problems. Not only do the girls have an uneasy - and in the case of Su-Mi, openly acrimonious - relationship with their stepmother Eun-Joo (Yum), but all three females seem to be suffering from varying neurotic disturbances. Aren't they always in ghost stories? Anyway, Mu-Hyun seems largely insensitive to the tension around him, merely doling out pills occasionally.
Loosely based on a Korean folk-story, the film mostly plays out as an extended flashback after a prologue that features a doctor asking a seemingly mute girl "Can you tell me about that day?"
Su-Mi (Lim) and her younger sister Su-Yeon (Mun) arrive home with their father Mu-Hyun (Kim) after they've spent some time in hospital for an unspecified malady. However, it soon becomes clear that mental illness is at the heart of their problems. Not only do the girls have an uneasy - and in the case of Su-Mi, openly acrimonious - relationship with their stepmother Eun-Joo (Yum), but all three females seem to be suffering from varying neurotic disturbances. Aren't they always in ghost stories? Anyway, Mu-Hyun seems largely insensitive to the tension around him, merely doling out pills occasionally.
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