Tale of Two Sisters, A

aka: Janghwa Hongryeon
South Korea 2003, 109 minutes
Dir. Ji-woon Kim
In Korean with English subtitles
Rating: [M]
Genres: Foreign Cinema, Horror / Paranorma, Youth

Feat. Kap-su Kim, Jung-ah Yum, Su-jeong Lim, Geun-yeong Mun

Aroview: A further revelation of the K-horror genre, this enters the forboding world of two devoted sisters who endure the lakeside household of their malicious stepmother, seething with ghostly menace.

Merging past, present, hallucination, dream and reality, this skillfully inserts disturbing portents and images into a scenario that suggests the ruthless world of fairytales, shot through with scenes of grueling, shadowy carnage. Not as abstract as THE GRUDGE, this manages to be even more suggestive, with a thoroughly impressive and overwhelming aesthetic richness. Lush Victorian Damask patterns appear in every other frame.