Use of Tropes: the Wailing

The Wailing is a 2016 film by Korean auteur Hong-jin Na and, from the outset, I have to say that it is a wonderful rabbit warren of misdirection throughout and so bleakly dark it is untrue. Coming in at just over 2.5 hours, the biblical quote at the head directly relates to the ending rather than just being a scene setter and you know from this you are in for a ride, although that ride is going to be tense.

The film uses many themes and we certainly have possession/exorcism and a moment that is wonderfully zombie in its depiction. There is also the use of tropes that are perhaps from the vampire genre, which is why I’m looking at it here.

the murderer

The film itself starts in a village in South Korea and local policeman Jong-goo (Do-won Kwak) has to get up, though it is still dark and a rainstorm rages, as someone has died. He is persuaded to stay and eat before leaving, by his mother-in-law (Jin Heo), who lives with him, his wife (Jang So-Yeon) and his daughter Hyo-jin (Hwan-hee Kim). Eating with them, he explains that it is the ginseng-seller’s wife who has died, apparently murdered. When he eventually gets to the crime scene, it has been discovered that the seller himself was murdered (elsewhere) and dragged to the house. Outside is the murderer, handcuffed and seemingly in a trance, his skin covered in a rash and boils.

in the forest

So, we have families where one of them goes mad and slaughters everyone, and the perpetrator always has the rash. But there is talk about a Japanese immigrant (Jun Kunimura) living in the woods and it is around him that our tropes appear. In the first instance, being Japanese, he is an outsider – and, of course, this makes him the Other, which is often the role of a vampire. The film moves us into a scene where we see him in, what is revealed to be, a second-hand story being told. A man is in the forest and finds a dead deer, he lifts it but looses his balance and falls down an incline and cracks his head on a rock. When he wakes the Japanese man is nearby, naked, bar a diaper, and tearing into the deer with his teeth. He sees the man has woken and comes at him, bearing over a rock, his ears pointed, his eyes red…

The mysterious woman

Now this could be just an Othering urban legend or xenophobic tall tale. Later, whilst sitting outside another crime scene, a mysterious woman (Woo-hee Chun) annoys Jong-goo by throwing stones in his approximate direction, with her gradually moving physically closer to him. Eventually she gets to the cop and then she enters the crime scene, despite his protests, and shows him where the deaths occurred and then says that the ‘old woman’ told her where it happened and also told her that the “Jap is a ghost. He was gonna suck her blood dry.” This is clearly our most vampiric aspect. The mysterious woman then tells Jong-goo that if he has seen the Japanese Man (and he has, a couple of time) then that is the ghost stalking him for his blood. Returning to the biblical quote I mentioned, which was Luke 24:37-39 – where the Christ risen from the grave says he is not a ghost as he is corporeal – the film makes us wonder if he can be a ghost and corporeal?

the photos

Jong-goo leaves her to take a call and when he returns she has vanished. He searches for her but at the back of the house, instead of her, he sees the Japanese Man, naked and eating flesh. The Japanese man runs at him… He wakes from a nightmare – now we quickly establish he did see and lose the woman – as his boss is aware of it – but he has dreamt the Japanese man in his bestial state. The cops speak to the witness from the forest, who swears he saw the Japanese Man in bestial form, and have him take them to the stranger’s remote house. On the way there they find the deer and realise he was telling the truth (though that could have just been about his fall) but they don’t get to the house as there is a sudden storm and the witness is struck by lightning. This could be coincidence or... well, we also know that control of storms is part of the genre. Things get more urgent for Jong-goo when they eventually get to the Japanese Man’s home and find photos of those who have had the rash and items of their possessions, including Hyo-jin’s shoe. Getting home Jong-goo discovers she is developing the rash and her personality has changed.

Hyo-jin is ravenous

Interestingly there are points when Hyo-jin becomes ravenously hungry for any food – reminiscent of the feeding of one of the restless dead in the film Strigoi, and there was a rash element in that film too. The photos are an interesting aspect, as one reading (as there are photos of them alive and dead) is that they are a way of stealing a soul. However, the film twists and turns and, whilst Jong-goo becomes convinced the Japanese man is some sort of evil shaman and persuades some of the townfolk to blame him for what is happening, we also get told that he is a good shaman or monk who is trying to protect those afflicted. The Othering also comes in when someone suggests that the Japanese Man is also a rapist – though his alleged victim is dead, having hung herself after one of the mass murders, so cannot confirm or deny. Jong-goo’s mother-in-law has him employ a shaman also, and the death hex he attempts to cast at the Japanese Man involves hammering iron stakes into a wooden fetish.

zombie-ish moment

This was a great film. I have seen complaints that the ending is confusing. There is apparently a deleted scene that does clarify the ending but only in as much as it agrees with what I thought the film was saying anyway. It is a film that manages to build a palpable tension and is relentlessly dark, nevertheless, it is worth seeking out if you haven’t seen it and it does use vampire genre tropes.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK