20 Amazing South Korean Movies You Must See Before You Die
8. The Wailing
Action director Na Hong-jin slowed things down a bit here to deliver his best movie with this intriguing supernatural thriller.
The Wailing starts out like a mystery, with a slightly bumbling cop investigating a series of violent murders and their possible link to a strange illness in a remote rural community. Gradually, though, this sinister slow burn story uncovers an increasingly unsettling atmosphere as a dark world of the spirits reveals itself.
As the film shifts gear from suspense thriller into full-on supernatural horror, and from a largely realistic look and feel into something much more nightmarish, further levels of lies and mystery open up. There's shamanic rituals and demonic possession, but also so many twists and turns in the plot that it never goes quite where you expect it to.
The Wailing is long, but it never outstays its welcome, always instead finding a new path to become more and more ominous, arcane and disconcerting.
Na has been suggested as the next big talent from South Korea to follow Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho to major international recognition and, on the basis of The Wailing, that seems entirely possible.