Soon after a stranger arrives in a little village, a mysterious sickness starts spreading. A policeman, drawn into the incident, is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.Soon after a stranger arrives in a little village, a mysterious sickness starts spreading. A policeman, drawn into the incident, is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.Soon after a stranger arrives in a little village, a mysterious sickness starts spreading. A policeman, drawn into the incident, is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.
- Awards
- 34 wins & 57 nominations
- Il-gwang
- (as Jeong-min Hwang)
- The Mysterious Woman
- (as Woo-hee Chun)
- Mother-in-Law
- (as Jin Heo)
- Yang Yi-sam
- (as Do-yoon Kim)
- Oh Sung-bok
- (as Kang-gook Son)
- Kwon Myung-joo
- (as Seong-yeon Park)
- Heung-gook
- (as Mi-nam Jeong)
- Dispatch Captain
- (as Gi-Cheon Kim)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFor his ceremony scene, actor Hwang Jung-min filmed for 15 minutes without break. It was one long-take scene.
- Quotes
Il-Gwang: Even among other demons, he's a master of evil.
Jong-Goo: If that's true, why did it have to be...
Il-Gwang: ...your daughter? What sin did that young girl ever commit?
Jong-Goo: Yes.
Il-Gwang: If you go fishing, do you know what you'll catch?
Jong-Goo: No.
Il-Gwang: He's just fishing. Not even he knows what he'll catch. He just threw out the bait, and your daughter took it.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Renegade Cut: The Wailing (2017)
It's been a while since a Korean film had this kind of craftsmanship and artistic control to match its ambition. In many ways The Wailing is the true successor to the class of 2003 – when A Tale of Two Sisters and Oldboy as well as the aforementioned Memories of Murder were released – with how confidently the visuals are displayed, the themes are interwoven, and the story unfolds. The forebodingly beautiful cinematography nods at Kubrick, the acting is exemplary (including a worryingly remarkable turn from the child actress Kim, Hwan-hee as Jong-gu's daughter), and most of all the atmosphere of escalating horror that Na captures is impressively unsavoury indeed. The film is a bold departure (or throwback, depending on how you look at it) for Korean cinema in its heavy emphasis on the occult, a theme more associated in the country with the well-worn moralism of its ghost stories and the oft-parodied rituals of harlequin-esque shamans. At well over two and a half hours, The Wailing is a hefty movie, but with its potent mixture of procedural mystery, black comedy and a prevailing sense of dread, it commands attention masterfully for much of the duration.
The one drawback for the film is a significant one that takes the shine off what could otherwise have been a landmark movie. During the course of the film Na throws a number of questions and macguffins up in the air. Who or what is causing the fever? Can the shaman be trusted? Is the Japanese stranger a victim of xenophobia? Who is the nameless girl always hovering around the crime scenes? Or is it all just collective hallucination caused by bad mushrooms? The Wailing takes its twists and turns, apparently answering the questions and overturning expectations. But then it keeps going, reopening closed plot strands and even downright contradicting itself on occasions. It soon becomes apparent that Na isn't so much interested in telling a self-contained story than an exercise in audience-baiting. 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. The ending is neither closed nor open-ended, but rather wilfully indeterminate, and it's tempting to think that Na is applying the film's fishing motif to the audience. Whether it's an appropriately auteur thing to do, or a self-defeating display of directorial indulgence, is perhaps best left to the individual viewer to decide.
- kjihwan
- Sep 17, 2016
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Tiếng Than
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $6,420,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $786,633
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $77,892
- May 22, 2016
- Gross worldwide
- $49,851,770
- Runtime2 hours 36 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1