This effective ghost story from South Korea approaches
overkill but doesn’t go over the line. It also presents one of the best
creep-out performances from a child, ever.
Ji-won (Ji-won Ha) is a reporter who has just completed a
series of articles about a ring of pedophiles. A man who is outraged by the
stories (we assume because he’s close to, if not a member of, the ring) keeps
bombarding her with threatening phone calls. Her best friend Ho-jeong (Yu-mi
Kim) invites her to move temporarily into the new house Ho-j has just finished
decorating and in which she and her husband Chang-hoon (Woo-jae Choi) will soon
take up residence. Ji-w accepts, hoping to hide from her tormentor.
But after the move, something odd happens. Ho-j’s young
daughter Yeong-ju (Seo-woo Eun) answers a call on “Aunt Ji-won’s” mobile phone.
Whatever she hears shapes her face into a mask of terror and she begins
screaming. After that, she fluctuates
between happy little Yeong-ju and something else, something that develops a
creepy, sexually charged affection for her father and bitter jealousy for her
mother. Note here that the Yeong-ju can’t be more than six years old.
As the air grows thicker and the story moves toward its
grotesque finale, we learn that Ji-won’s mobile phone as been assigned a number
that was given previously to a couple of people who died violently. There seems
to be something in the number 6644. There are the ghost of the teen Jin-hie
(Ji-yeon Choi), a girl who seeks vengeance because of a sordid, failed love
affair; lots of rainy nights, and enough sudden apparitions to satisfy the most
fervent lover of K-horror. The scene when Jin-hie succeeds in possessing Yeong-ju
is terrifying not only within the context of the story but also because of the
intensity of young Seo-woo Eun. You won’t believe what you’re seeing.
The film was written and directed by Byeong-ki Ahn, and it
is a masterful piece of work. If you’re not already familiar with the South
Korean horror renaissance of the 1990s-early 2000s, this is a good place to
start getting acquainted.
