A Tale of Two Sisters

Alternate Title:
Hongryeon Janghwa
Rating:
8
Summary:
Most confusing movie ever, though amazing audio mastering.
Director:
Ji-woon Kim
Year:
2003
Genre:
Horror
Country:
South Korea
Language:
Korean
MPAA Rating:
R

This is truly a psychological (thriller?) film if there ever was one. It's categorized as horror, though I'm still not sure if anything in the film was supposed to have been real or all just in the girls mind. Also, this movie has the best use of 5.1 I have ever heard; I mean it was amazing; they had direction on nearly every sound. If you do watch the movie, make sure you get a 5.1 version out of a 5.1 compatible system. None of this pro-logic crap.

This is a very entertaining South Korean movie (they're rare). It starts out with a girl and her sister coming back from what you assume is a mental institution to rejoin their family. Their step mom though seems to be pure evil. Soon after returning, the older daughter, Soo-mi, has a strange dream where she is in a forest of bamboo and her sister is dead, she then wakes up to something crawling on the floor. It stands up and is a dead girl, similar to that of the ring, except it has a broken neck. Soo-mi sits there in sheer terror as it climbs onto the bed. Blood starts dripping down its leg, and all of a sudden from between its legs (its wearing a skirt) an arm shoots out and grabs her leg. She then wakes up and assumes it was all a dream.

It seems as though the step mom and the daughters just can't get along, until eventually it builds up to the step mom locking Soo-yeon (the younger sister) in a wardrobe. Soo-mi comes in and lets her out, and when the father comes up to investigate, Soo-mi tells him how the step mom locked her in the wardrobe. Now here's where it gets interesting, the father replies something to the extent of 'Quit these games, Soo-yeon is dead' This is very confusing because you have seen Soo-yeon interact with a number of people(?) Especially the step mom who had locked her in the closet.

After this point, it looses all sense. I still have not quite figured out what was what, because it gets very complicated. Here's the gist of it though as I understand it (skip this if you ever plan on watching it) The step mom kills Soo-yeon (who's supposable already dead) Soo-mi goes looking for Soo-yeon and finds her dead in a sack (we don't see it but we assume its her) Then Soo-mi assumes that she actually is insane, and asks the step mom for help, at which point the step mom agrees to help her and smashes her with a statue, killing her. Then the father comes in, finds Soo-mi and the Step mom, but, now here's where everything goes to hell, the step mom comes in the door, and for a second there are two step moms in the room. It is then that the first step mom, the one who's gone on the murderous rampage realizes that in fact she is Soo-yeon (the one who the father said was dead) It then cuts to her in a mental institution again.

After this there is a flashback (I assume) of their original mom hanging her self in a wardrobe, and then the wardrobe falling on Soo-yeon and crushing her to death?

I really suggest watching this film with someone else because it is so confusing you will want to discuss it. I do believe I have done a horrible job hacking together the plot for you, so watch it and prove me wrong.





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