Friday, September 25, 2020

Quick Review: Arang (2006)


Directed by Sang-hoon Ahn

Country of Origin: South Korea

Several douchebag bros have died in gruesome, inexplicable ways and the cops are completely baffled. Their only lead is a mysterious website that shows up on their computers showing a rundown salt house while playing a creepy melody. Detective So-Young (Yun-ah Song) discovers that the site is referring to a village where all these idiots used to hang out. As soon as she gets there, So-Young and her rookie partner (Dong-Wook Lee) discovers that the villagers have been afraid to go near the salt house because it’s friggin’ haunted.  

I wasn’t in a big hurry to revisit Arang but boy, I’m glad that I did! It blends the (totally not overdone at all) ghost girl subgenre with a police procedural very well and the characters, especially So-Young, are really interesting. Yun-ah Song is so damn good in this movie. Her character is tough and cocky but just under the surface, she’s in great pain from a past trauma. What a performance! While the ghost elements are well done, they owe a lot to the Ringu films and a whole mess of other Asian horror flicks. But just like the folklore that it’s based on, the story of Arang is tinged with sadness. This movie, especially if you can find it cheap, is well worth your time.

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