Like any horror-occult movie worth its salt, The Wailing is replete with bone-chilling scenes, blood and gore, suspense, sadness, hopelessness and the daunting reality that evil never sleeps.
Central to the plot is a father’s love for his daughter and the heart wrenching dilemma he finds himself in when attempting to do battle with the very evil that has taken possession of her.
The movie does take its time to set its premise and introduce its main characters. Patience is necessary as one begins to wonder where on earth the mindless spate of murders at the beginning of the movie is going.
But it is here that we are introduced to the movie’s central figure – the ever bumbling, cowardly and often regarded as lazy police sergeant Jong-Goo played by Kwak Do-won.
Wearing an often blank, alarmed and somewhat confused look, we resist the urge to dislike this man – lower-ranking officers show more bravery than he does and higher-ranking officers curse him to his face.
However Jong-Goo’s character undergoes a metamorphoses of sorts, and like peeling the layers off an onion, a caring, intelligent and heroically brave man is revealed by the time the movie draws to its close.
Jong-Goo’s character aside, the scenes of gore and satanic worship interwoven into the storyline, leave a lasting impression, displaying with great boldness, the might of the devil and how, just like that classic song Hotel California, you just can’t ‘kill the beast’, or even recognise who the devil he is for that matter. As far as the villagers are concerned, the devil resides in a Japanese stranger, played by Kunimura Jun, newly arrived, who lives deep in the forest. It is not coincidence they say, that his presence in their neck of the woods was noticed at around the same time the gruesome murders began.
Written and directed by Na Hong-jin of other notable flicks like the award-winning The Chaser, The Yellow Sea, The Perfect Fishplate and Sweat, much of the action in The Wailing takes place in deep, dense forests or in the dead of night, where sheets of rain and gusts of strong winds cast angry shadows that play tricks on one’s eyes.
One iconic, and absolutely deafening scene (literally), involves the super-confident and rather attractive shaman, played by Hwang Jung-min, who attempts to cast a hex on the person he believes the evil spirit resides in.
Pounding drums, clanging cymbals and furious bonfires make up this macabre scene as the shaman, dressed in all-white robes, flails his arms as the machetes he wields in both hands is used to slit the throats of sacrificial animals handed to him. Writhing in pain inside the house is Jong-Goo’s daughter, who is possessed by an evil spirit. Spiritual warfare of mega proportions take place now and the abruptly-cut scenes alternating between the shaman, the little possessed girl and the stranger in the woods in the midst of a ritual of his own, are pretty riveting to be honest.
But just as one thinks the shaman has earned his wages, the plot takes a twist, whirling the audience up again in its roller-coaster ride fused with more question marks, more fear and more anguish.
Unsure of who to believe, who to distrust and how to save his daughter from the clutches of evil, we see Jong-Goo battle his own rationality and instincts as his world is thrown into a state of chaos, death, doubt and fear.
A rather long movie, be ready to settle in for a haunting tale that may not tie-up all the loose ends in a pretty bow like you want. You will leave the cinema however having been thrilled, spooked and tricked by a master storyteller who refuses to give in to the lie that all in life can be explained or that all mysteries can be solved.
The 150-minute movie, brought by 20th Century Fox, is in Korean with English subtitles. It carries a rating of 18 and opens in cinemas on Oct 13.