Wailing, The (2016) [Blu-ray]
Drama | Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

--- Subtitled ---

In this unbelievably tense supernatural thriller, a foreigner’s mysterious appearance in a quiet, rural village causes suspicion among the locals - suspicion which quickly turns to hysteria as the townspeople begin killing each other in brutal outbursts for seemingly no reason. As the investigating officer watches his daughter fall under the same savage spell, he agrees to consult a shaman for answers - unknowingly escalating the situation into something far more dangerous. A 2016 South Korean horror thriller film directed by Na Hong-jin about a policeman who teams up with shaman and a mysterious woman to investigate mysterious killings and illnesses.

Storyline: A stranger arrives in a little village and soon after a mysterious sickness starts spreading. A policeman is drawn into the incident and is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, October 2, 2016 The Wailing seems to be this year's The Babadook , a horror film that comes out of nowhere and takes the critical world by storm, while also not necessarily hewing to traditional horror tropes every step of the way. Like The Babadook, The Wailing traffics in what might be termed a more interior, psychological aspect, though unlike The Babadook, it's a sometimes gruesome tour through what seems to be the after effects of a kind of St. Vitus' Dance marauding through an isolated Korean village where a series of horrific murders occurs. Weirdly comic at times, the film features a lead investigator named Jong-gu (Kwak Do-won) who might be thought of as a Korean version of a Keystone Cop, afraid of his own shadow and dangerously incapable of crowd control. That gives elements of The Wailing a perhaps unsettling humor that plays a bit oddly against both the supernatural aspects of the tale as well as what almost becomes a mythic battle between good and evil. The film is a brilliant examination of paranoia sweeping through a "closed" (or at least insular) society, with fear of "the other", in this case a recent Japanese emigré, as one of the motivating factors behind the panic that sweeps the little town of Goksung (the original Korean title of the film). While The Wailing may strike some as too ambiguous for its own good, or at least for logical explanations of what's taking place, the film is strikingly original and often quite disturbing.

The Wailing begins with an epigraph culled from the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus importuned the Apostles to accept his resurrected presence as the "real thing". Some Biblically astute viewers might actually start thinking of another version of this story, related in the Gospel of John, where the term "doubting Thomas" got its origin, for in a way, various characters in the film aren't quite ready to accept what's going on at face value. When Jong-gu arrives at the first murder scene, the initial hypothesis is that the killer, who sits stunned and speechless outside the crime scene, has ingested wild mushrooms and gone on a psychedelically inspired killing spree. That "rational" explanation starts chafing against an almost folklorish account that's making the rounds of the town about the new Japanese outsider, one who is supposedly in an atavistic state out in the woods, eating downed animals while gazing around menacingly with glowing red eyes.

Part of what gives The Wailing its unique feel is the distinctly Eastern way people respond to various traumas throughout the film. There's an almost bizarre reluctance on the part of some of the cops to actually engage the populace in general and indeed the main suspect, the Japanese immigrant who is known simply as The Outsider (Jun Kunimura). This tendency is nowhere more obvious than in a riveting scene where Jong-gu takes a police acolyte and a local priest to the Outsider's shack in the woods and begins investigating. The other cop actually finds a spooky hidden room that is filled with photographs of and personal items belonging to the victims, while the priest deals with the Outsider's equally spooky pit bull, who is going ballistic. When the Outsider shows up, no one really even engages him, aside from a cursory apology from the priest, and the scene ends in a kind of stalemate with the participants just sitting in the room with each other, not even making consistent eye contact. Could you imagine a scene like that playing out in a traditional Western horror film, especially one with a policeman trying to track down a culprit, supernaturally inclined or otherwise?

In other ways, The Wailing is at least a bit more traditional, especially in a subplot involving Jong-gu's adorable little girl Hyo-jin (an extremely impressive Kim Hwan-hee) who starts exhibiting symptoms of the "disease" spreading throughout the town, one which typically ends in death for either the sufferer of the ailments, or indeed for victims of the sufferer. This plot arc plays like a Korean version of The Exorcist, down to the extended sequences featuring a shaman (Hwang Jung-min) who is hired to exorcise what is assumed to be a demon which has taken control of Hyo-jin. Parts of these sequences play awfully close to Ioruba or Voodoo scenes in films as disparate as Black Orpheus or The Believers. It's also notable that the shaman is one of the more contemporary characters in the film, tooling about in a sports car and sporting a man bun himself. In fact, The Wailing consistently draws contrasts between an ancient, even archaic, way of life, replete with folkloristic belief systems, and a burgeoning modern world that has arisen around (or maybe even in spite of) them.

While the mood that The Wailing creates is palpable, especially in the film's late going, I'm personally not so sure some of the sillier aspects of the film in its early going really connect organically to the whole or in fact help the film in the long run. Aside from Jong-gu's general ineptitude, there are all sorts of little "bits" scattered throughout the film, like a brief detour about adult diapers and, later, a sequence involving a health food store owner getting struck by lightning, a scene which tries to toe the line between horror and comedy but which ultimately tips over pretty clearly into the humor camp. All of this seems downright odd once the film goes for the gusto once Hyo-jin seems to be in the thrall of something satanic, and then a nice ambiguity is pursued as another potential suspect enters the fray, leaving a distraught Jong-gu trying to decide what the truth is.

The other potential stumbling block for some viewers will be the film's length, which clocks in at over two and a half hours. In a couple of the ironically pretty brief supplements included on this release, director Na Hong-jin discusses his wish to craft a film which builds its horror slowly, even lethargically. In this regard, The Wailing may recall efforts like The Shining which like to luxuriate in nothing (or not much) seeming to be happening, until of course all hell breaks loose. Finally, the film is lacking a bit of internal logic, something that Jong-gu touches on when he's in discussions with a character who may either be his savior or his downfall. The whole reason this particular demonic presence has visited Goksung isn't adequately explained, and that may leave any moralistic subtext feeling patched on.

I'm not quite sure The Wailing really hangs together the way some of the best horror films do, but there's no denying the mood this film builds over its arguably too lengthy running time. Some may, like I did, find the comedic elements not especially helpful, but once the film turns toward its "darker" proclivities, things get increasingly disturbing. Technical merits are strong, and even without much in the way of supplements, The Wailing comes Highly recommended.

[CSW] -3.5- It's definitely a slow burn and in all honesty they could have trimmed off 30 minutes to streamline it a bit. That being said all of the characters are very interesting and in the last act I was really curious how they were going to tie up all of the loose ends which they did in a nice twist ending.
[V4.0-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box
[Show Spoiler][Hide Spoiler]
Remember I said a twist ending but I purposely left out the spoiler that it was a purposefully ambiguous ending. Here is one possible explanation.
The Wailing was the third installment from one of my favorite Korean directors, Na Hong Jin, and was by far the most enjoyable for me. Here, I will attempt to explain my personal interpretation of the ambiguous ending: that BOTH the Japanese man and girl in white were evil spirits, battling with each other to "hook" the helpless villagers. Remember in the beginning of the film how there were TWO hooks which impaled the worm?
The daughter: I believe that the daughter was originally possessed by the Japanese man. It seems apparent that in order for these spirits to possess their victim, they need 1) something of their possession and 2) they need to place a cursed item within their vicinity. The daughter's possession was the shoe, and the cursed object was the crow found inside the bucket by the shaman. During the exorcism, the old man is severely weakened and seems to feel physical pain as the shaman is stabbing the wooden voodoo doll. However, when Jong-Goo prevents him from finishing his ritual, he returns back to life. However, in his weakened state he is unable to continue possessing Jong-Goo's daughter, seen by her apparent return to health.
However, this gives the girl in white an opportunity to catch her as her own prey. In the final scene, where the girl is begging Jong-Goo not to leave, she tells him to wait for the rooster to cuckoo thrice. I believe each cuckoo marks the death of all 3 members of Jong-Goo's family (daughter, wife, grandmother). However, Jong-Goo sees her in possession of his daughter pink hair clip, and rushes back home before the third cuckoo is sound. As he enters his home, the flower, which is the girl in whites cursed object (which he was analysing at the beginning of the movie in the first victims burnt house) rots. I believe this symbolizes the curse being broken, as the daughter and and Jong-Goo are still alive the next morning. Moreover, the girl in white was wearing the colorful cardigan which one of the female victims was originally wearing.
The shaman: I believe that the shaman was originally good, but became possessed by the Japanese demon somewhere after his failed ritual. He becomes a medium of the Japanese man, and when he goes to Jong-Goo's house the girl in white is already waiting for him, asking him "what are you doing here". I interpreted this as her defending her territory from the Japanese man, who once again tried to haunt her after he regained his strength in the cave.
I am still really confused about the movie, and the director himself stated that an ambiguous ending open for interpretation was the only ending he envisioned for the movie. What are your interpretations?


º º