Directed By: Kim Jee-woon
Produced By:
- Oh Jeong-wan
- Oh Ki-min
Release Date: 13 June 2003
Starring:
- Kim Kap-soo
- Moon Geun-young
- Im Soo-jung
Cast:
- Im Soo-jung as Bae Su-mi
- Moon Geun-young as Bae Su-yeon
- Yum Jung-ah as Heo Eun-joo
- Kim Kap-soo as Bae Moo-hyeon
- Lee Seung-bi as Mi-hee (Eun-joo’s sister in law)
- Lee Dae-yeon as Su-mi’s doctor
- Park Mi-hyun as Mrs Bae
- Woo Ki-hong as Sun-kyu
Language: Korean
Country: South Korea
Distributed By:
Runtime: 114 minutes
ABOUT THE MOVIE A TALE OF TWO SISTERS
Kim Jee-woon is the writer and director of the 2003 South Korean psychological horror-drama film A Tale of Two Sisters. The movie is based on the Joseon Dynasty folktale Janghwa Hongryeon jeon, which has been made into various movies. The main character of the narrative is a newly discharged mental patient who, upon joining her sister at home, encounters unsettling incidents involving her stepmother and the spirits who inhabit the building, all of which are linked to a sad period in the family’s history.
MOVIE PLOT A TALE OF TWO SISTERS
Firstly, in the movie A Tale of Two Sisters, Su-mi, a teenage girl, is receiving treatment for shock and insanity at a mental hospital. After being freed, she visits her father and younger sister Su-yeon, whom she is fiercely protective of, at their family’s remote estate in the countryside. The sisters see their stepmother Eun-joo, who is continuously on medicine, in a chilly reunion. Due to their sexless marriage, Eun-joo and her husband also struggle to get along.
GHOST IN NIGHTMARE
Furthermore, Su-mi encounters her deceased mother’s ghost in a nightmare. The following day, she discovers family photographs showing Eun-joo caring for her mother, who was then near death, at home. Following which, She thinks Eun-joo is to blame after seeing bruises on her sister’s arms. Su-mi confronts Eun-joo about the injuries, but Eun-joo won’t accept responsibility for what she did.
EUN-JOO’s TALES
In the movie A Tale of Two Sisters, Eun-joo entertains their uncle and aunt with strange tales while they dine that evening. The aunt dies after a terrible seizure that occurs out of the blue. When she regains consciousness, she informs her husband that during her seizure, she glimpsed the spirit of a dead girl beneath the kitchen sink. The ghost girl grips Eun-arm joo’s ferociously as she attempts to see what is below the sink.
Following the discovery of her beloved bird being murdered and dismembered, as well as some vandalised photos, Eun-relationship joo’s with her stepdaughters deteriorates. Locking Su-yeon in the closet, she assumes that these behaviours are somehow related to the females. After releasing her, Su-mi informs her father of the mistreatment.
SU-YEON’s FATHER PASSED AWAY
She is told that Su-yeon has passed away by her father, who begs her to stop acting out. Su-mi rejects the idea, insisting that her sister is weeping violently just next to her. Eun-joo whips a bloody bag around the home the next morning. Su-mi is of the opinion that Su-yeon is in the sack. A serious physical conflict occurs between Eun-joo and Su-mi. When Su-father mi’s gets there, he finds Su-mi unresponsive.
Su-mi and her father were the only people in the house at the time, it is eventually discovered. She had dissociative identity disorder, which caused her to have two personalities: her true self and a snottier, estranged version of her stepmother Eun-joo. Su-mi murdered the pet bird and was also the one who was flogging the “body” in the bag, which was actually a porcelain doll. Su-appearance yeon’s was really the consequence of Su-hallucinations; mi’s she had long since passed away.
In the movie A Tale of Two Sisters, Sending Su-mi back to the mental hospital is the father and the genuine Eun-joo. Eun-joo makes an effort to make up with Su-mi by vowing to see her as much as she can, but Su-mi rejects her. The next evening, Eun-joo discovers that the ghost is real when he hears footsteps in Su-previous yeon’s bedroom. When Sa-true yeon’s ghost emerges from the closet, it kills Euo-joo. Su-mi, who appears to have at last achieved serenity, smiles in the meantime.
The day Su-mi was institutionalized is revealed through flashbacks. Her father had an adulterous relationship with Eun-joo when she was still their in-home nurse, and her mother was still alive and in the latter stages of her illness. As a result, their mother hangs herself in Su-bedroom yeon’s closet, upsetting the sisters. Su-yeon tries to resuscitate her, but the closet caves in and crushes her.
Su-yeon is writhing and struggling to breathe when Eun-joo, acting at the last second, chooses to save her. Su-mi, on the other hand, shows up and chastises Eun-joo for meddling in her family matters. Eun-joo is furious with Su-mi for her comments and leaves Su-yeon to perish before warning Su-mi that she will “regret this time.” Unaware of the fates of her mother and sister, Su-mi leaves the house.
