The Wailing (film)


The Wailing 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 hamlet called Gokseong in order to save his daughter. The film was both a commercial and critical success.

Plot

A Japanese man arrives at Gokseong, a small rural village in the mountains of South Korea, and lives in a secluded house in the forest. The village soon begins to experience violent murders, the cause of which is a mysterious infection that marks its victims with a rash and causes them to become deranged and kill their families. The sudden outbreak leaves police officer Jong-goo bewildered.
One night at the police station, Jong-goo's partner Oh Seong-bok reveals his suspicions about the Japanese stranger. They are interrupted when a naked woman appears outside in the rain. They later make the connection that this woman was one of the people who got infected and murdered her family. While alone at the scene of the crime, he meets a mysterious young woman called Moo-myeong, who tells him that the Japanese stranger is a ghost and the culprit. Jong-goo steps outside to call Oh Seong-bok to tell him to quickly come over, but when he goes back inside he finds she's vanished. A local hunter tells Jong-goo and Oh Seong-bok that he saw the stranger with glowing red eyes, eating a raw deer in the forest.
Jong-goo is unsettled, as he has had similar dreams about the stranger, and decides to investigate him with Oh Seong-bok. They enlist the help of Oh Seong-bok's nephew, a Japanese-speaking deacon named Yang I-sam who can translate for them. They arrive at the stranger's house but don't find him there, which gives them the opportunity to investigate the empty house. Oh Seong-bok finds pictures of the murdered village residents and their belongings in a small room while Jong-goo finds a worship room. The stranger's guard dog that was tied to a chain outside gets loose and attacks them, stopping only when the stranger arrives. Jong-goo and his team leave.
While on the road back home, Oh Seong-bok tells his partner what he saw, and hands over a shoe that belongs to Jong-goo's daughter, Hyo-jin. Soon Hyo-jin becomes sick and displays symptoms similar to those of the other infected villagers. Jong-goo returns to the stranger's house, but finds that all the evidence has been burned. Infuriated, he smashes up the stranger's worship room, kills his dog when it attacks him, and orders the stranger to leave the village on threat of death.
Distraught about Hyo-jin's condition, Jong-goo's mother-in-law seeks help from a shaman, Il-gwang. Il-gwang informs their family that a wicked spirit has possessed Hyo-jin and performs an exorcism, to little avail. Il-gwang learns that Jong-goo disturbed the Japanese stranger, who he says is not a man, but a demon. He prepares to carry out a death-hex ritual, but tells Jong-goo he must not be interrupted while performing it. The stranger performs a ritual in his house at the same time, but both he and Hyo-jin begin to experience excruciating pain as Il-gwang's ritual progresses. As a result, Jong-goo forcefully stops the ritual and opts to take his daughter to the hospital instead. The stranger recovers enough to pull himself into bed, where he sees Moo-myeong standing outside his house.
The following day, Jong-goo gathers his friends to hunt down the stranger. They arrive at the stranger's house, but as they are searching for him they get attacked by one of the infected villagers, injuring Yang I-sam and giving the stranger time to flee. They pursue the stranger but lose him when they reach a cliff. The stranger, who had been hiding just out of view, sees Moo-myeong staring at him from afar. As the weary group drives back down the mountain to their village, the stranger lands on their windshield. They dump his body over the side of a cliff as Moo-myeong watches them all from above. When Jong-goo returns home, he finds that Hyo-jin's condition has seemingly improved.
Il-gwang drives to Jong-goo's house where he encounters Moo-myeong and begins to vomit blood. Scared by the incident, Il-gwang tries to flee the city but eventually decides to turn back. On his way back, he tells Jong-goo via phone that he made a mistake, that Moo-myeong is the real demon and the stranger was just a shaman like him trying to stop her. Meanwhile, the wounded Yang I-sam receives news that his uncle, Oh Seong-bok went berserk and killed his entire family.
Jong-goo returns home only to find Hyo-jin missing. While searching for her, he meets Moo-myeong. She claims that the stranger is still alive and that she has set a trap for him, but that the trap will not work if Jong-goo returns home, and that Hyo-jin will kill everyone. Il-gwang calls Jong-goo again and tells him not to believe her and that he should get to his house to protect his family. Moo-myeong in turn tells him that Il-gwang is actually a mere pawn of the real demon. Confused and hesitant, Jong-goo asks Moo-myeong if she is a human or a ghost to which she gives a cryptic answer. Moo-myeong grabs Jong-goo in an effort to convince him not to leave. Jong-goo instead notices that she is wearing the personal items of the victims including his daughter's hair pin. Jong-goo concludes that she is the culprit and pulls himself away. The moment he crosses his home's threshold, the floral trap set by Moo-myeong withers.
Yang I-sam returns back to the stranger's house with a sickle and a cross in his hand. He finds a secret cave near the house and encounters the still-alive stranger inside. Yang I-sam asks the stranger what his true form is, to which the stranger asks in reply, what he thinks he is. Yang I-sam replies that he thinks the stranger is the devil, but if he's wrong he'll leave him in peace. The stranger laughs at the answer and says he is the one who is not going to let him leave. He then proceeds to photograph Yang I-sam while asking why there is still doubt in him about the stranger's true identity. As Yang I-sam stands frozen, the stranger start changing into his true form, a demon.
Back home, Jong-goo finds that Hyo-jin has brutally murdered their family. He tearfully calls out to Hyo-jin but she is in a stupor and doesn't respond. Il-gwang arrives and takes photographs of Jong-goo's dead family. While returning to his car, he unintentionally drops a box filled with photos of the murdered villagers that the stranger claimed to have burned. As devastated Jong-goo sits traumatized in his home, grieves over his daughter'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 in a bench on 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 witness the car fading away in the horizon.

Cast

The Wailing was released in South Korea on May 12, 2016. The film was shown in the Out of Competition section at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18, and was released in the United States on May 27.

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 7.92/10, based on 81 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." On review aggregator website Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Jada Yuan of Vulture.com described the film as "operating on a level that makes most American cinema seem clunky and unimaginative". Anton Bitel of Little White Lies commented "By turns funny and despairing, this village noir brings the horror of uncertainty." Leah Pickett of Chicago Reader stated "the film justifies its epic length, meshing ancient east Asian mythology and rituals with more recognizable horror tropes in a way that feels novel and unpredictable. The actors are uniformly strong..." 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." 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". 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". 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 first appears. But the film’s gradual progression into something more sinister puts a different spin on Na’s masterful use of pacing". 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".
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 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 and The Yellow Sea, both of which also got their start in Cannes." 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." 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, 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." 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."
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." 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".

Awards and nominations