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Product Detail |
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Audio Format: DD 5.1, DTS Video Format: Widescreen 1.85:1 (Anamorphic) Languages: Korean, Thai Subtitles: English, Thai Region Code: ALL, PAL Year Made: 2003 Running Time: 115
 Eun-joo, the stepmother, welcomes two sisters who come back home after recovering their health, but Su-mi, the elder sister, intentionally avoids her and Su-yeon, the younger sister, shows a smack of fear for her stepmother. On their first night, Su-yeon sneaks in Su-mi's room confessing there is someone in her room and Su-mi sees a ghost of her late mother who hung herself in Su-yeon's closet. Strange things begin to happen since then; a ghost haunts the house and stepmother's birds are poisoned to death. Assuming Su-yeon is behind the inauspicious incidents, the stepmother locks her in the closet, and when Su-mi learns about the cruel punishment, conflict between the stepmother and two sisters gets bitter than ever.
One day, Mu-hyun, the father goes to town and Su-mi finds there is no sign of her younger sister, Su-yeon and Su-mi sports Eun-joo dragging a big bag through the dark corridor leaving bloody stains behind her. Su-mi follows bloody trace of the bag and she confronts with Eun-joo on her way of tracking. They starts to fight vehemently and Su-mi falls down struck by Eun-joo in the end... A while later, Mu-hyun comes back to the house and founds Su-mi fallen on the floor alone and enraged Mu-hyun exclaims that Su-yeon was already dead??| His exclamation awakes a series of memories and hidden secrets buried deep inside of Su-mi...
 Precise direction that goes more for slow chills than quick frights, and a script with some startling twists, makes "A Tale of Two Sisters" a classy entry in the East Asian psycho-horror stakes. Though pic is at heart an old-fashioned scarefest largely set in a remote country house, it manages to suspend disbelief without over-taxing the viewer's patience, and boasts at least once terrific performance, by actress Yeom Jeong-ah as a scary stepmom. DreamWorks recently pounced on stateside remake rights, though pic also looks to have some Western theatrical potential as well as a robust ancillary future.
Film opened powerfully in South Korea June 13, dislodging "The Matrix Reloaded" from its top spot. In its first three weeks, it's racked up more than 2 million admissions (around $14.5 million), with a final tally of 3 million-plus admissions likely. Third feature by writer-director Kim Jee-woon is very different in tone from his previous movies, the black horror-comedy "The Quiet Family" and charming romantic fantasia "The Foul King." Its clean, controlled approach to generic material is, in fact, closer to his seg ("Coming Out") in recent Asian horror omnibus "Three." Though pic has some similarities to the style of Japanese psycho-thrillers, a simpler, Western parallel would be with Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining." There's the same avoidance of shadowy lighting effects, with the horror emerging as much from characterization and the slightly stylized design and color.
In a pristine sanatorium, a doctor interviews a silent young woman about her memories of "that day." Dissolve to a car journeying through summertime landscape and three people getting out when they reach a wooden house in an idyllic, lakeside setting: father Mu-hyeon (Kim Gab-su) and daughters Su-mi (Im Su-jeong) and Su-yeon (Mun Geun-yeong). Waiting inside with a greeting as warm as a prison warden's is young stepmom Eun-ju (Yeom), to whom Su-mi is openly hostile. From their frosty exchanges with Eun-ju, it appears the sisters have spent a while away from home undergoing treatment for some unspecified illness. The younger one, Su-yeon, is still apprehensive and fragile.
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