Country: Korea Original Title: 장화, 홍련 Janghwa, Hongryeon (literally 'Rose Flower, Red Lotus')
Fairy Tales Have Never Been This Grimm
Once upon a time, two little girls were sent to live with their wicked stepmother in the country. Su-Mi and Su-Yeon have had to go away for a little while because they've been sick, but now they're back in the family home, deep in the countryside and at the mercy of their seriously nutty stepmom, Eun-Joo. Director Kim Ji-Won spends the first half of his movie building up the quiet, stately rhythms of family life, but if you listen carefully you can hear something rotten and dead scrabbling away beneath the floorboards.
As the ghosts begin to crawl out of the closet, and as the house itself seems to shimmer with malevolence we learn that nothing is what it seems, that appearances can be lethally deceiving, and that the ghosts of our past sins will haunt us forever.
