As I have mentioned numerous times, I am not a fan of horror movies. In particular, my number one pet peeve is jump scares. Now, for certain scary movies, I’ll allow one good jump scare; it almost goes with the territory. But if the director has to use one every fifteen minutes, my heart does not need that much of a workout, and I am going to avoid it very quickly. This is mostly reserved for American movies, quite often on their fifth sequel. However, Korean horror flicks know how not to use the jump scare and instead focus on making things as gruesome and disturbing as humanly possible. Or inhumanly, perhaps. Today, we take on a modern horror classic in the 2016 film, The Wailing as it makes its way on 4K UHD disc. Let’s take a look and see if the ol’ ticker can handle this one.
We get a Bible passage to start out this movie, it’s from Luke 24:37-39 and basically describes the resurrection of Jesus. The important part of this passage is two fold, in that the people had doubts that he was resurrected and that he resurrected physically as opposed to as a spirit. Let’s continue.
We are overlooking a lake. There is a Japanese man (played by Jun Kunimura) fishing. There seems to be some issue with the way the bait is hooked, and he messes with that for a while before we fade into the next scene.
Jong-Goo, a detective (played by Kwak Do-won) wakes up to a call about a murder. Apparently Cho, the ginseng grower’s wife, died. His wife (played by Jang So-yeon) as well as his mother-in law (played by Heo Jin) insist that he eats breakfast before he goes, to which he finally relents. Soon after, he drives to the location of the body.
Upon his arrival, Jong-Goo gets a raincoat and is notified there are two corpses on the scene. There is much sadness and shock, and then the horrific scene unfolds which words cannot do justice (and might be spoiling things a tad). Heung-Gook (played by Jeong Mi-nam) stands as the accused. The wife was stabbed seemingly twenty times, and the husband was found dead as well. The body shows signs that it was moved, and they have figured out the original location. Soon the police including Jong-Goo leave to hopefully find more evidence.
As we enter the new location, Jong-Goo finds some mysterious dead flowers before being called to the obvious spot of the true murder. In short, it is even more horrific than the bodies themselves. Perhaps it is time that we roll the credits.
Byeong-Gyu (played by Choi Gwi-hwa) finds a dead deer in the forest that is freshly passed and decides to pick it up to take back for food. However, the weight is too much for the man and he trips. Then he falls and smashes his head, rendering himself unconscious. When he comes to, Byeong-Gyu opens his eyes to see something that can’t even be explained properly. Short to say, a monster is raiding his find. The hurt man tries to watch secretly, but soon the monster realizes that eyes are upon him. Then the monster’s eyes lock on a new target and …
It appears that Oh Seong-bok (played by Son Gang-guk) is spreading ghost stories again as he sits with Jong-Goo at the police station. Apparently, all of this happened after the Japanese man arrived. After some “wonderful” police work, it was determined that Heung-Gook had mushrooms in his system, and that was the motive for the murders. All of the sudden, the power goes out. The two policemen see someone outside that scares the crap out of them. Of course, when they go outside, whatever it was is now gone. The next day Jong-Goo wakes up with a nightmare and receives a call that a woman has murdered her entire family. Perhaps the ghost stories and nightmares are not a fantasy after all.
Even though this film starts as perhaps another murder mystery, it slowly devolves into a freakish nightmare full of twists and turns. Unless you dive into a few Reddit theories or forum discussions, it is one that with leave you with more questions than the film gives you answers. Even then it is certainly open to interpretation as the curtain draws on the frightening ending. The film is brilliantly acted, especially by Kwak Do-Won, Jun Kunimura, and Kim Do-yoon who plays Yang I-Sam, a deacon-in-training among others. But perhaps the best performance is Kim Hwan-Hee who plays Hyo-Jin, the young daughter of Jong-Goo. In a word, spine-chilling. Is that two words?
Much like my reviews, this film does suffer from time to time from tonal shifts. There are certain parts in the movie where it goes from horror to comedy and then back again. While this is present in many Korean films, it’s a little more obvious in the first ninety minutes. Furthermore, if you are a massive fan of murder mysteries like I am, it might lead to moments of pure frustration over how the investigation is sometimes handled. Thankfully, the final act strips all bits of comedy and goes right for the jugular. The movie can’t be described as a slow burn either, because the action and horror are fierce and rarely let up for some tender moments of exposition. It is brilliant how the film comes together but requires some serious dedication to get through it.
Video
The video is in 2.39:1 widescreen in HEVC / H.265, but this is unfortunately an up-scaled presentation on a BD-66 disc and includes HDR10. The average mbps figures to be about 45. That does sound low until you figure in that Well-Go crammed a 2 1/2 hour movie into a BD-66 disc. Many scenes are in the 30’s, and while there are occasional spikes in the 50’s (and a brief second or two in the 60’s), it’s a disappointing bit rate to say the least. It doesn’t even use all of the BD-66.
With that said, how does the disc look? It is a good disc. The majority of the movie does take place outside, and we get to see much of South Korea’s mountainous landscape, which is very vivid. It’s a pretty picture, and there is some depth to be found here along with a warmth of natural color. However, I would venture to say that long shots of mountains or the country side do seem to suffer, and we get a string of scenes that do have fuzziness and wavering in the background. It’s far from distracting, and I still tend to think that this is a very good presentation, but we are talking about a film that’s considered by many as a modern masterpiece. Why didn’t Well Go just put this on a BD-100, and give it a little room to breathe? Instead we are given a resolution that’s only slightly better than the Blu-ray.
Audio
The audio for this one is Dolby DTS HD 5.1 (Korean). Subtitles are also provided in English. As was mentioned in the Man from Nowhere review, there is no ATMOS track despite the fact that it’s listed everywhere on the cover art and slip. The disc lists the audio as “Multi-channel” in the setup, so I wasn’t even sure what my receiver was going to register until I hit play. The audio track provided was the same one that was on the Blu-ray and has no discernible difference from their counterpart. The Blu-ray has a 2.0 Korean track as needed.
With that said, the audio is fantastic. It shows off the environment so very well, and if the story wasn’t enough to immerse you, then the audio will bring that up a notch. For those of you who thought Se7en was great at capturing rain, well, I think The Wailing might give it a run for the money. Dialog is well spoken, and I didn’t have any obvious issues with the subtitles. (I have questions as I have mentioned, but I don’t think it’s to do with the subs.) It’s perfect for a Saturday night, and the intense sounds might even give your neighbors a nightmare or two.
Special Features
- The Beginning of the Wailing 1:51: A quick featurette with interviews and some behind-the-scenes footage.
- Making Of 4:56: Many of the same interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, and more behind-the-scenes footage. Let’s get serious for a second, A two and a half hour movie, and all you have is five minutes of behind-the-scenes footage? Seriously, even people who swore by Cliff Notes in college are looking for more material.
- There is a Trailer also provided to round this out.
- NOTE: Only the Blu-ray has the extra features. Initial pressings of this title do come with a slipcover.
Final Thoughts
While we don’t have the time to go over all the awards that this film gathered, the standouts are that it was nominated for 13 awards at the Blue Dragon Film Awards, and won five of them, including Best Director (Na Hong-jin) and Best Supporting Actor (Jun Kunimura). Meanwhile at the Grand Bell Awards, it was nominated for another 10 and won five awards, including Best New Actress (Kim Hwan-hee). That is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to accolades and recognitions.
This film is excellent at building tension and has a multitude of great performances from Kwak Do-won to Kim Hwan-hee to even a few I didn’t even get to mention like the shaman (played by Hwang Jung-min). There are plenty of disturbing scenes and some tonal shifts that may cause many to drop the movie before the two and half hours come to a close. However, those who stick with the movie will be rewarded with an amazing climax that will warrant repeat viewings provided you have the stomach for it.
While the movie was not a disappointment by any means, the disc did leave me with a sense of what could have been. The audio is superb, but the video suffered from lack of a reasonable bitrate and the extras which were only found on the blu-ray were miserable at best. I certainly wouldn’t have minded a film critic type commentary and there is at the very least a known deleted scene that should have been included. This could have been easily done on a BD-100 and had room to spare. On the plus side, Well Go did not make this a pricey 4k disc and it can be found for roughly ~$15 through GRUV and Amazon. The movie is very much recommended whether one purchases the 4k version or sticks with the blu-ray copy. Enjoy.
