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Title: A Tale of Two Sisters (Deluxe Edition) (2005) |
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Review of A Tale of Two Sisters (Deluxe Edition)
- Something strange is happening when Su-mi and her younger sister, Su-yeon, come home to their fathers large but dark and somewhat foreboding house after a stay in the hospital. Their dad is taciturn and burdened, and their stepmother, Eun-joo, greets them with forced enthusiasm and more than a little sense of irritation. But thats nothing compared to what happens when bedtime rolls around. Stylish and shocking, this visually arresting tale of family secrets and uncertain realities is based on a traditional Korean folktale. Guaranteed to have you gasping for breath with each successive scare. 2 disc set features over 2 hours of bonus footage.
Description
- Two young sisters recovering from an unnamed trauma must face a mysterious past in this excellent South Korean shocker. A worldwide hit upon its release and based on an old Korean fairy tale; two sisters (wonderfully played by Su-jeong Lim and Geun-yeong Mun) come to live with their cold and distant father and turn-on-a-dime stepmother in a house where nothing is as it seems. A wonderfully haunting score, starkly beautiful imagery, and a labyrinthine plot that twists and turns at every dark corner all set the stage for a riveting and often terrifying guessing game of a movie. Equal parts drama, mystery, and ghost story, A Tale of Two Sisters is a richly complex and challenging cinematic treat that may very well demand repeat viewings. --Matt Wold
Amazon.com
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Comments for A Tale of Two Sisters (Deluxe Edition)
- Posted on 2008-05-07
A Masterpiece In A Sea of Faux "Masterpieces"
This review is long overdue, since I consider A Tale of Two Sisters to be the single greatest film ever made. I'll put this gem up against any movie in terms of screenplay, cinematography, acting, post-production, editing, directing, or any other aspect of film-making. It's practically perfect in all of them - a true masterpiece in a sea of faux "masterpieces."
The structure of this film is easily the most tightly constructed in the history of cinema. I can think of no other film where something vitally important occurs every other minute. Quite literally, Ji-woon Kim seems to have made a movie that practically taunts the viewer to dissect it on the most detailed of levels. A seemingly insignificant object may be shown - a rack of dresses, two diaries, a drop of blood emanating from a floor crack, a bottle of pills, etc. - but upon meticulous inspection turns out to be so much more - a clue that helps to make sense of that particular scene (or perhaps the movie in total), which almost always contributes a stirring reflection upon the psychological concepts that lurk in the background until the viewer's intelligence prompts them to spring to the forefront. Such an event might occur a handful of times during any other movie, but in A Tale of Two Sisters such events occur in such a rapid-fire, relentless fashion that the viewer must watch the film in a perpetual state of alertness, lest they miss something important. In other words, the content level of this film is enough to easily fill a dozen other films. How can anyone in their right mind ask for anything more from a movie than this? It's quite simply the highest, most superlative form of cinema imaginable.
The most commonly cited criticism of A Tale of Two Sisters is nicely summarized by Zaphod B Goode on IMDb, who falsely claims that the story is an incoherent, unresolved mess that uses confusion to instill a false sense of intelligence because it does not provide a final set of facts underlying the intriguing questions. He posits that Ji-woon Kim tossed up a dozen possible explanations and left it at that. In reality, however, nothing could be further from the truth. A Tale of Two Sisters provides a series of unassailably objective facts that help the viewer to identify the EXACT occurrences of each and every scene of the film. If our good friend Zaphod had been paying attention, he would have noticed - for example - the series of obvious flashbacks which provide enough factual information to make sense of the film. These flashbacks convincingly contradict Zaphod's assertion of complete subjectivity. The objective elements of A Tale of Two Sisters are so obvious to anyone willing to see them that the mere assertion of a lack of objectivity can only call into question the patience of a viewer who apparently does not want to put forth even the slightest effort whatsoever to see them. Can Ji-woon Kim really be faulted for the impatience of viewers who lack the desire to understand his film? I think not.
Please note that I will not insult the intelligence of critics such as Zaphod that cannot "get" A Tale of Two Sisters, because it really has nothing to do with a lack of intelligence as much as a lack of persistence. The movie spells itself out so effectively that the only possible explanation for confusion is a lack of effort on the part of the viewer. Yes, this film does require a rather significant amount of puzzle-solving, but the pieces fit together to create a beautiful picture. You need only put them together. Remember, the screenplay was written by someone with the picture already in mind - he simply separated the pieces and placed them skillfully throughout for the purpose of providing a magnificent cerebral exercise that - when completed - bestows an ultimate form of satisfaction and state of awe.
Don't misunderstand me. There are films that seem to start with an incomplete picture and try to create a puzzle that is insoluble by design. Spider Forest (2004), Perfect Blue (1998) and Donnie Darko (2001) are perfect examples of this. A Tale of Two Sisters is not. It's ironic that Zaphod claims Darko to be more masterfully constructed than A Tale of Two Sisters, especially considering that Darko not only provides almost NO objective facts but also a twist ending that is the quintessential deus ex machina cliché that could be dropped at the end of any movie ever made in order to provide the ultimate in faux intelligence. I'm ashamed of myself for mentioning the two films in the same sentence, but the contrast is an important one. Although it does perplex me that Zaphod would cite a movie that crumbles when exposed to even the slightest intellectual effort as a way of criticizing a film that only becomes discernible thru a significant application of intellectual effort. He apparently likes his "intelligent" films in the most superficial form possible. This is evident when he makes 17 consecutive questions in his review that are answered quite convincingly by the film itself. Just read the threads by Opiemar within the IMDb A Tale of Two Sisters Discussion Forum. Anyone who carefully reads those threads and still asserts a lack of an objective solution to this film may as well stop watching intelligent films altogether because the answers are so damned OBVIOUS.
Just watch it. It's the greatest film ever made.
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-01-10
Am i losing my mind? how can so many people like this bland movie
I have seen my share of asian horror and this was probably the worst film I have ever seen. Do NOT waste your time with it. I am shocked by the amount of people that liked this film. The "twist" was so basic to figure out in the FIRST SCENE. I usually like asian horror because of the pace and twists but this was so boring. Nothing happens for the first 30 min then a Juon ghost appears and the nothing happens again for 30 minutes then a juon rip of ghost come back again then nothing happens for 50 minutes then its over. WEAK! SO dissapointed! : ( no if u excuse me, my mom is calling me for dinner.....
Score: 1
- Posted on 2008-01-10
Shattered Reflections
Magnificently recreated from a Korean folktale, A Tale of Two Sisters, produced by Sir Laosson Dara for iPictures and Tartan Asia Extreme (2003), impresses thoughtful filmgoers with its dazzling imagery, complex plot twists, and seeming incongruities, which are wedded to a full complement of visceral shocks and shudders.
Su-Yueng's (Geun-yeong Mun) older sister, Su-mi (Su-jeong Lim), recently institutionalized, cannot recall the upheaval that destroyed her family at its country lakehouse, frustrating her psychiatrist. Prescription in hand, the girls' father, Dr. Mu-hyeon (Kap-su Kim) chauffeurs the brooding remnant home, journeying through tropical thickets, lush river valleys, and verdant mountains. Tall thistles rhythmically willow to the film's counter-intuitive score, an enchanting composition by Byung-woo Lee.
Among the spate of psychological thrillers in the J- and K-horror tradition that have made their way to our shores from half a world away, this award-winning film is a masterpiece--thanks, in part, to the brilliant performances of actresses, Su-jeong Lim (Su-mi) and Jung-ah Yum (Eun-ju), the writing and direction of Ji-woon Kim, cinematography and art direction of Mo-gae Lee and Geun-hyeon Jo, and the imaginative film editing of Hyeon-mi Lee, The film's relevance derives from Kim's intrepid statements about the social and psychological tolls victims' pay in broken families, which is as much a potent issue overseas as it is in America. Kim et al., dramatically segue them into a top-tier, compelling and suspenseful horror-mystery.
The sisters saunter out of their father's car upon arrival and sensuously reorient themselves to their surroundings, warming to the sun. The chords of piano crescendo to the intensifying strains of guitar, violin, viola, and cello, as the pair rush out a pier adjoining a nearby wharf, seat themselves at its precipice, and broadcast their arrival by dipping their toes into cool, placid waters, generating eddies and ripples.
Throughout life, but particularly in childhood, each of us develops a sense of identity from the way we believe significant others perceive and judge us, as if they were reflecting pools. Charles Horton Cooley labeled this phenomenon, "the looking glass self" or "empathic introspection." For shattered minds, ridden by guilt and regret, the currents of distressed consciousness distort what we internalize from others, even if it comforts us. Preternatural angels and demons, real and imagined, mirror our self-perceptions. For aeons, they have stalked us, appearing in our cave art, dreams, nightmares, and hallucinations. Perhaps the wellsprings of "multiple personality disorder" (IDC-9) or "dissociative identity disorder" (DSM-IV-TR), the most dangerous of these entities may be the poltergeists summoned by traumatized adolescent girls through "recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis," as researched by Nandor Fodor. This was the theory advanced by novelist, Brent Monahan, and director, Courtney Solomon, as the source of the Bell Witch, in their interpretation of actual events that included a death on a 19th Century Tennessee farm in "An American Haunting" (Lionsgate, 2005). They dare us to face our most vexing secrets lest they remain forever cloaked behind ochre walls, painted veils, bedroom wardrobes, or concealed beneath bathroom and kitchen fixtures. They keep vigilance over our troubled souls from the muted corners of mind and matter, agitating us to become who or what we will--or confront what will become of us.
Under a glowering full moon, nighttime tells a different tale of two sisters, and their fractured world. Within a restless house of haunted mirrors and broken glass reside painful memories of an absent mother. Su-mi recollects her from old photos and personal effects retrieved from flowered boxes that her mum once ribboned with love. She shares them with Su-yueng--to the angst of their stepmother. Eun-ju (Jung-ah Yum) is an icy albeit beautiful nurse whom the sisters' aloof and self-absorbed father met at work, and later married, after she tended to their mother. Su-mi despises her, and Eun-ju returns the favor in spades.
In a notable scene, Eun-ju shrieks with laughter amid the pairs' uncle and aunt, who have been invited by Mu-hyeon to what should have been a quiet, candlelight dinner. With Mozart's Violin Concerto #5, providing the background music, she recounts an old tale about their neighbor, a farmer, otherwise uninteresting, who uncharacteristically stripped-off his clothing whenever it rained while plowing his fields, often in full view of travelers who might be motoring along an abutting highway. After prodding her guests to remember the amusing story, Eun-ju sours in disgust at their professed ignorance and confusion. Su-mi's aunt drops to the floor, lapsing into an epileptic seizure, which nearly chokes her to death, but successfully kills the evening. On their return trip, the sisters' aunt tells their uncle that while she lie convulsing on the floor she spotted a ghostly girl hiding underneath the kitchen sink. A similar entity entered the bedrooms of Su-mi and her sister the previous night. There is a fascinating bond that ties Su-mi, Su-yueng, and Eun-Ju to the metaphysical wraith. The latter's gripping role, as a silent storyteller, though brief, will chill filmgoers with the details that underlie the devastating family history, shown in fleeting fragments and flashback. Suffice it to say that what we see of ourselves, as mirrored in others, often is re-visited when we become their reflecting pools.
An "American" adaptation of A Tale of Two Sisters, starring Arielle Kebbel and Emily Browning, along with David Straihairn, Elizabeth Banks, and Maya Massar recently concluded filming in Bowen Island, British Columbia, Canada. Shot by British directors, Charles and Thomas Guard, the picture is scheduled for release later in 2008--all the best. The world keeps spinning.
Score: 5 - Posted on 2007-11-26
Psychological Thriller + Ghost Story = A Bad Combo
The majority of reviewers classifies the movie as a first rate psychological thriller because of the older sister's schizophrenia. The question that begs most for an answer is thus: is there a ghost in the house? If the answer is no, a few scenes just can not be explained away with simple psychology. For example, who/what gets the stepmother in the end? Who/what is under the kitchen sink? If it is yes, the story does not make much sense as a whole as psychosis and ghost do not work well together. (The exception to the rule is where the ghost drives a person to insanity, as in The Shining and Amityville, which is clearly not the case in A Tale.) Is she crazy or is there a ghost? It is either one or the other, but can not be both. A Tale does not answer the question and therefore leaves the viewers confused and unsatisfied.
I got goose bumps a few times watching A Tale. The director's choice of bold color, cinematography and music all greatly contribute to the haunting atmosphere and overall dread. The style gets 5 stars. I can not however overlook my disillusion with the story's lack of logic. The film thus gets 3 stars.
Drop me a comment if you disagree with my assessment.
Score: 3
- Posted on 2007-11-08
Awesome Film
I wasn't sure what to expect when I bought a Tale of Two Sisters. Up until that time I had only watched Japanese horror movies. A Tale of Two Sisters is now my favorite asian horror though.
The movie really makes you feel like you've been thrown into the middle of psychological madness. The characters are very real and sell the acting well. The creep factor of this movie is very high. It can at times be a bit confusing to the person watching, making it even creepier.
I recommend this movie to anyone who likes Asian horror films.
This movie is equally disturbing as it is beautiful. The story is very good, very intricate psychological horror.
Score: 5