
To be fair, I had no idea this film even existed until a day before I viewed it. I had been in New York City for work for a couple of days before proceeding to South Korea and India for about 14 months, and I was fully prepared to delight in my last visit to the city.
Then when I noticed the shift to a different continent, I made good use of my AMC subscription on the plane as the airline carrier would never have provided the in-flight amusements. For those unaware, AMC is a chain of movie theaters in us and I had been subscribed to it for quite a while.
After relocating to New York City, the first thing I had to do was figure out where the different movies were showing in Manhattan. Each time I find myself in New York, I make it a point to watch a couple of Asian films that would have been difficult or even impossible to find in my country because the cultural temples have a tendency to showcase them in the cinema situated in Times Square.
The following film on the slate was Exhuma. The interesting names of Kim Go-Eun and Choi Min-sik drew my focus. I didn’t consider inquiring about and what the actual film was. This strategy was enticing enough for me to buy a ticket on Sunday evening. It is ironic that 75% of the diapason audience was from Korea while the remaining foreigners like myself were ‘waegukin’ in Korean.
A beautiful Korean shaman named Hwa-rim is invited by an American Korean family, and the family wishes to go to California which you can see from the news at the onset of the film.
Together, the teacher and her student, Bong-gil, comprehend the scope of the mission they are attempting to handle. Their family gave birth a while ago but the baby has been affected by Grave’s Call. It means a long-lost relative has risen and is threatening the family.
The head of this family, as an example, recommends that the two of them try to pits that a annum is buried so this annum disinters. They are ready and willing to do that, but only for the right price. In this respect, Hwa-rim knows how to reach two of her colleagues in South Korea: Kim Sang-deok the feng shui specialist, and Yong-geun who is a mortician.
Sang-Seok tries to see the joke in the whole condition but after sitting with the patriarch and having to sense what his particular feelings about the whole condition and how it seems. One of these situations that was also very pertinent in this whole area was the paper graves that need to be subsequently burned and therefore he is escaping. Hwa-rim succeeds in trying to persuade him that she is going to cast a spell while they remove soil from the grave site.
Later the patriarch mentions a monk who told him where the grave is on a hill in the northeastern border with North Korea.
The assembled team along with the extended family makes a trip to the grave where everyone has been laid to rest.
As the video playing on the screen shows, Hwa rim and Bong gil both begin their ritual which is essentially a form of excavation and is being executed in proper stages.
However, at the last moment, the axe suddenly interrupts one of the human snake diggers. Hwa-rim is able to sense the bad energy while torrents are taking place. Since it is not auspicious to set fire to the coffin while it is pouring, Yong-geun puts the coffin into the hearse to put it in the hospital for a while.
But when he steps out to have a meal, the janitor opens the lid of the coffin and frees the spirit imprisoned within so that it may go out and annihilate all the progenies. At first, he systematically eliminates all the heads of the family members and then gets down to the head of the family himself. To stop the rampager who has gone out there to kill the infant in Los Angeles, Sang-deok burns his coffin, so that the soul spends some time in hell before being reincarnated.
Time passes by but one day Yong-geun informs Sang-deok that the grave digger who beheaded the cobra is now not feeling well and he has blood oozing out of his eyes and nose. They return to the tomb expecting to find the head of the snake with a human face and to their shock, learn that a double corpse had been buried there. The coffin which is to the side nearby is around seven feet tall and then they fetch it.
They take it to a temple that’s nearby for the night but during the night Bong-gil gets up and notices a huge creature feeding on other people along with some pigs.
He warns Hwa-rim as well but Bong-gil gets injured and possessed by the flesh eating parasite. The rest of the fight drains too much of the samurai ghoul’s energy and he turns into a fireball and blasts off into the mountain and that’s where Hwa-rim manages to survive.
The army then takes Bongo-gil to a hospital and in this situation, Bong-gil gets possessed and thus Hwa-rim is now able to focus on her education.
Sang-deok returns to the grave and thinks the tomb raiders she had earlier heard of are in fact the Koreans who were once fighting for their country. She understands that samurai have been left in the place after the battle that happened many centuries ago.
They intend to follow the Samurai’s influence in Korea. Everyone meets and candles their heads and comes forth with the idea that they trace the pole that is used to confine the ghoul at this location and they depart for the mountain. At the hour of fright, the ghoul becomes active and Hwa-rim thinks of using a wyed or spooning technique.
Everyone does their best to help Breech fail Sang-deok’s decision even if his grandmother supports her, Sang-deok and Yong-geun dig under the soil looking for the pole where they hope to find, but expect to find, is missing. Remembering Bon-gyeong’s sign Sang_deok has which geula has a need there has to be a pole then somewhere in the body of the ghoul.
He almost dies but others come right on time to him. In a bid to make a parting shot to the story, the film ends as Bong-gil and Sang-deok are both treated and the family members attend the marriage of his daughter.
Overview:
In the beginning, I must say that I actually liked the movie more than I wanted to. The Korean movie doesn’t quite go easy on the viewers since some storylines may find the plot harder to comprehend than others, but in my case, for someone who’s immersed in both Korean mythology and culture, the movie is simply one of the best there is.
For example, the part when Hwa-rim performs the ritual dance with Bong-gil as a singer acting in front of the large audience adds immersion as the pansori is actually happening on the cinematic screen. For someone who adores both pansori and Korea to bits, that was a great deal, thank you.
There are few graphic scenes in this Korean movie that scared the girl sitting next to me; but on a personal level, the horror scenes of this movie didn’t really bother me as I would rate them as A-B. Also, the actors did justice to their roles and acted quite well in the movie.
So do yourself a favor and find this Korean movie thanks to its engaging storyline, interesting characters, and plot! In my eyes, it’s certainly worth watching.
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