Release date: October 2012
An island
village is suffering from a deadly supernatural manifestation that all local
shamans and religious leaders have given up on. An all-star team from around
Korea—Shi-min the monk, Wol-gwang the clairvoyant, Seung-hee the tarot master, Seok-hyeon
the scientist of the supernatural, and a wild crew of various others—is
assembled by Park, the dapper and flamboyant exorcist and off they go on their
excursion bus to site of the trouble. Thrown into the mix is a young
journalist, Chan-young, who goes with them to writ-up the story. The plot
involves a haunting originating over fifty years ago during the Era of the
Japanese Occupation and involves the Japanese navy, lost shipments of gold, and
wrecks at sea.
This fast
paced and wild comedy was greatly engaging, especially the first half. The costuming and characterization
of the “fortune-telling” community
was done in a
visually rich and hugely entertaining fashion: outfits decorated with arcane
symbols, military figures from any number of nations and centuries, even a
Catholic nun and priest. It was a gas to see who we could spot and identify. In
the first half, the comedy comes fast and
furious, and was rather dark while in the second half, comedy gives way to horror, making the film someone uneven. The title in Korean means “The Fortune Tellers” or “The Exorcists”,
where they got “The Ghost Sweepers” from is an arcane and oft-asked question of
Korean cinema in the world!
My take: 4 stars
Just one of the flamboyant
crew, Seung-hee the tarot master,
shuffling her cards (Kim
Yoon-hye, 김윤혜).
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