The Wailing (film)

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The Wailing
Theatrical release poster
Hangul	곡성
Hanja	哭聲
Revised Romanization	Gokseong
McCune–Reischauer	Koksŏng
Directed by	Na Hong-jin
Written by	Na Hong-jin[1]
Produced by	Suh Dong-hyun Kim Ho-sung[1]
Starring	Kwak Do-won Hwang Jung-min Chun Woo-hee
Cinematography	Hong Kyung-pyo[1]
Edited by	Kim Sun-min[1]
Music by	Jang Young-gyu Dalpalan[1]
Production companies	Side Mirror Fox International Productions
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	May 12, 2016 (2016-05-12) (South Korea)
Running time	156 minutes[1]
Country	South Korea[1]
Languages	Korean Japanese
Budget	US$8 million
Box office	US$51.3 million[2]

The Wailing (Korean: 곡성; Hanja: 哭聲; RR: Gokseong) is a 2016 South Korean horror film directed by Na Hong-jin and starring Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee. The film centers on a policeman who investigates a series of mysterious killings and illnesses in a remote Korean village called Gokseong in order to save his daughter. The film was both a commercial and critical success.^[3][4][5]

Plot[]

After a Japanese man arrives at Gokseong, a small village in the mountains of South Korea, a mysterious infection breaks out and causes the villagers to become deranged and violently kill their families.

One night at the police station, officers Oh Seong-bok and Jong-goo are discussing the Japanese stranger when a naked woman appears in the rain. They later discover the woman, infected, was raped by the Japanese stranger and was spotted several times naked in different places, has murdered her family. At the crime scene, Jong-goo meets a mysterious young woman called Moo-myeong (“no name” in Korean), who tells him the Japanese man is a ghost and the culprit. Jong-goo steps outside to call Oh Seong-bok, and the woman vanishes, and he sees a very scary figure. A local hunter tells them he saw the stranger with glowing red eyes, eating raw venison in the forest.

Jong-goo has similar dreams about the stranger and decides to investigate with Oh Seong-bok. They enlist the help of Oh Seong-bok's nephew, a Japanese-speaking deacon named Yang I-sam. They investigate the stranger's house when he's out and find pictures of the murdered villagers and their belongings, as well as a worship room. The stranger's guard dog attacks them and stops when the stranger returns, so Jong-goo and his team leave. On the way back, Oh Seong-bok shows his partner a shoe that belongs to Jong-goo's daughter, Hyo-jin. Hyo-jin grows sick, with symptoms similar to those of the other infected. Jong-goo returns to the stranger's house, but finds the evidence has been burned. Infuriated, he smashes up the worship room, kills the guard dog, and orders the stranger to leave the village.

Jong-goo's family discovers the bloody body of a dead goat hanging in front of their front gate the next day, and Hyo-jin later stabs and seriously injures a neighbor when the family had gone to treat Jong-goo, leaving her alone. Distraught about Hyo-jin's violent behavior and change in health, Jong-goo's mother-in-law seeks help from a shaman, Il-gwang. Il-gwang says a wicked spirit has possessed Hyo-jin. His exorcism fails. After learning Jong-goo disturbed the stranger, who he says is a demon, Il-gwang prepares a death-hex ritual and tells Jong-goo he must not be interrupted. At home, the stranger performs a ritual at the same time to seemingly possess the body of one of the dead victims, Park Choon-bae. Hyo-jin experiences excruciating pain as Il-gwang's ritual progresses. Jong-goo stops the ritual and takes his daughter to the hospital instead. The stranger pulls himself into bed after his own ritual and sees Moo-myeong outside his house.

The following day, Jong-goo gathers his companions to hunt down the stranger. As they search his house, they are attacked by the now reanimated corpse of Park Choon-bae, who injures Yang I-sam and gives the stranger time to flee before convulsing and returning to his dead state. They pursue the stranger but lose him at a cliff. The stranger, hiding just out of view, sees Moo-myeong staring at him from afar. As the group drives back down the mountain, the stranger lands on the windshield. They dump his body off the cliff as Moo-myeong watches from above. Jong-goo returns to find Hyo-jin has seemingly improved.

Il-gwang drives to Jong-goo's, where he encounters Moo-myeong and vomits blood. Il-gwang runs to his room and lights a candle, but it extinguishes and he gets very scared and flees the town and heads to Seoul. However, he then turns back and calls Jong-goo to warn that Moo-myeong is the real demon and the stranger was a shaman trying to stop her, but he doesn't pick up the calls from him. Meanwhile, the wounded Yang I-sam receives news that Oh Seong-bok has killed his family, at the same time that Hyo-jin then disappears. While searching for her, Jong-goo meets Moo-myeong, who claims the stranger is still alive and she has set a trap for him, but it will fail if Jong-goo goes home before the rooster cries three times, and Hyo-jin will kill everyone. Il-gwang calls Jong-goo and tells him he should go home to protect his family and now says that Moo-myeong is the real demon and the stranger was a shaman trying to stop her. Moo-myeong says Il-gwang is a mere pawn of the real demon. Confused, Jong-goo asks her if she is a human or a ghost. She gives a cryptic answer. Jong-goo notices she is wearing the personal items of the victims, including his daughter's hair pin. Believing this to be proof she is responsible, he dashes home before the third cry of the rooster. The moment he crosses his threshold, the floral trap set by Moo-myeong withers.

Yang I-sam returns to the stranger's house with a sickle and a cross. He finds a secret cave nearby and the stranger alive inside. He asks the stranger about his true form and says he thinks the stranger is the devil, but if he's wrong, he'll leave him in peace. The stranger laughs maniacally and says he is the one who won't let him leave. He photographs Yang I-sam while asking why he still doubts the stranger's identity. As Yang I-sam stands frozen, the strangers nail grows and changes into a demon.

Back home, Jong-goo finds Hyo-jin has brutally murdered their family. He tearfully calls out to her, but she doesn't respond. It is implied she ends up attacking him as well. Il-gwang arrives and takes photographs of Jong-goo's dead family as Hyo-jin sits in a trance. Returning to his car, he unintentionally drops a box filled with photos of the murdered villagers that the stranger claimed to have burned. As Jong-goo lays dying, devastated by his family's death, he remembers happier times with his daughter and begins to smile, assuring her that he will protect her.

Deleted ending[]

In a deleted scene happening right after the conclusion of the story, the Japanese man is seen sitting on a bench by the roadside. He spots a family on the other side of the road and invites a child to him by offering her candies, but the mom picks up the kid before she manages to reach the stranger. A car driven by Il-gwang arrives and picks up the Japanese man before leaving. In the center of the road, Moo-myeong witnesses the car fading away in the horizon.

Cast[]

Release and reception[]

Release[]

The Wailing was released in South Korea on May 12, 2016.^[6] The film was shown in the Out of Competition section at the Cannes Film Festival in France on May 18, and was released in the United States on May 27.^[6] The film was then released on Netflix at a later date, though it has since been taken off the streaming service. The Wailing was released on other streaming services like Fandango Now, VUDU, Hulu, and Apple TV.^[7]

Critical response[]

The Wailing received widespread critical acclaim. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 99% and an average rating of 8/10, based on 82 critical reviews. The site's critics consensus reads, "The Wailing delivers an atmospheric, cleverly constructed mystery whose supernatural thrills more than justify its imposing length."^[8] On review aggregator website Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[9]

Jada Yuan of Vulture.com described the film as "operating on a level that makes most American cinema seem clunky and unimaginative".^[10] Anton Bitel of Little White Lies commented "By turns funny and despairing, this village noir brings the horror of uncertainty."^[11] Leah Pickett of Chicago Reader stated "the film justifies its epic length, meshing ancient east Asian mythology and rituals (village gods, exorcisms by shamans) with more recognizable horror tropes (demonic possession, zombification, the devil represented by a black dog and rams' heads) in a way that feels novel and unpredictable. The actors are uniformly strong..."^[12] Phil Hoad of The Guardian wrote "The layers of dissembling and self-dissembling pile up so thickly that not only does Na evidently touch on something integral about the nature of evil, but actually seems to be in the process of summoning it before your eyes."^[13] Financial Times's Nigel Andrews wrote "Very crazy, very Korean, very long: 156 minutes of murder, diabolism, exorcism and things that go bump by day and night".^[14] Clark Collins of Entertainment Weekly gave the film B+ grade, stating "Despite its epic length, The Wailing never bores as Na slathers his tale with generous supplies of atmosphere and awfulness".^[15] Jason Bechervaise of Screen Daily noted "The Wailing is initially set up as a thriller and the supernatural setting also helps deliver moments akin to a horror feature, particularly when a strange woman (Chun Woo-hee) first appears. But the film’s gradual progression into something more sinister puts a different spin on Na’s masterful use of pacing".^[16] Jacob Hall of /Film commented "The Wailing as it exists would involve burning the very structure of a traditional western movie to the ground. It’s why the movie is so great and it’s also why a remake seems so strange".^[17]

Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter added "As dark and pessimistic as the rest of South Korean thrill-master Na Hong Jin’s work, The Wailing (Goksung, a.k.a. The Strangers in France) is long and involving, permeated by a tense, sickening sense of foreboding, yet finally registers on a slightly lower key than the director’s acclaimed genre films The Chaser (2008) and The Yellow Sea (2010), both of which also got their start in Cannes."^[18] Maggie Lee of Variety noted "There’s nothing scarier than not knowing what you should be scared of. “The Wailing” erupts with a string of gruesome deaths in an insular village, but the investigation unleashes a greater terror — that of the paranoid imagination."^[19] David Ehrlich of IndieWire stated "“The Wailing” boasts all the tenets and tropes of a traditional horror movie, but it doesn’t bend them to the same, stifling ends that define Hollywood’s recent contributions to the genre. The film doesn’t use sound to telegraph its frights a mile away (there are no jump scares, here... well, maybe one), nor does it build its scenes around a single cheap thrill. On the contrary, this is horror filmmaking that’s designed to work on you like a virus, slowly incapacitating your defenses so it can build up and do some real damage. There’s a looseness here that’s missing from mainstream American horror, a sense that absolutely anything can happen next (and always does)."^[20] Aja Romano of Vox gave the film four points out of five, stating "The Wailing is the most unsettling Korean horror film in years, but it offers more chills than answers."^[21]

Lincoln Michel of GQ wrote "At just over two-and-a-half-hours long, The Wailing definitely takes its time, yet you could never describe it as a slow burn. This is a horror film that jumbles up ghosts, zombies, body horror, Eastern exorcism, Christian mythology, demonic curses, creepy children, and a lot more into one sustained narrative. This description may make it sound like the movie is a messy mash-up, but director Na Hong-jin ties it all together seamlessly. Instead of being a mess, the combination of tropes makes each individual one feel both fresh and terrifying."^[22] James Hadfield of The Japan Times gave the movie four stars out of five, writing "“The Wailing” veers from police drama to ghost story to zombie horror and back again, while tossing a generous helping of shamanism and Christian symbolism into the mix. At times, it resembles “The Exorcist” transplanted to the South Korean countryside; at others, it’s closer in tone to “Memories of Murder,” Bong Joon-ho’s masterful, slow-burning serial-killer drama".^[23]

Awards and nominations[]

References[]

External links[]

• The Wailing at AllMovie
• The Wailing at IMDb
• The Wailing at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Wailing at Box Office Mojo