“The Mimic” Korean Theatrical Poster
Director: Huh Jung
Cast: Yum Jung-Ah, Park Hyuk-Kwon, Shin Rin-Ah, Heo Jin, Lee Joon-Hyuk, Kil Hae-Yeon, Lee Yool, Noh Susanna, Lim Jong-Yun, Jung Ji-Hoon, Hwang Jae-Won
Running Time: 100 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Director and screenwriter Huh Jung made a strong impression with his 2013 debut Hide and Seek (which received a Chinese remake of the same name), a claustrophobic horror that posed the question – what if someone else was living in your property other than you? Despite its best intentions though, it was Jung’s own script that tripped him up, derailing the whole movie with a mid-way twist that rendered much of the promise on show obsolete. Regardless of its weaknesses though, Hide and Seek marked Jung as a director to keep an eye on, and in 2017 he returns to the screen with his sophomore feature The Mimic.
Jung is once again directing from his own script, for a tale which in many ways is a throwback to the more traditional horror tales that populated Korea’s horror movie scene in the 60’s and 70’s. The literal translation of the title is Jang Mountain Tiger, and much like Kim Ji-woon did with A Tale of Two Sisters, Huh’s latest provides a contemporary take on a Korean folk tale, this time one about a cave dwelling tiger spirit that’s able to mimic the voices of the dead. It’s not the first time for a cave dwelling spirit to be explored in recent Korean horror, with 2015’s abysmal The Chosen: Forbidden Cave utilising a similar premise, only replacing a tiger with a snake.
However like so many horror and supernatural outings of late, the most obvious influence in parts of The Mimic is Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing. Much like OldBoy saw the hammer become an omnipresent prop in so many Korean thrillers throughout the 00’s, so The Wailing is responsible for the almost guaranteed appearance of a shaman ritual in any horror flick for the foreseeable future. In the case of The Mimic though the trope is used effectively, and considering it’s a part of the original folk tale on which the story is based, is also entirely forgivable. The biggest concern going into Jung’s latest then wasn’t how much it would look to replicate The Wailing, but rather if he’d learnt the lessons from his debut feature.
The plot of The Mimic sees a husband and wife relocate from the city to the countryside, with their young daughter and husband’s mother, who suffers from dementia, in tow. We learn that some years ago their youngest son went missing, and although it’s never openly stated, it soon becomes clear that the mother has been clinging on to the hope of him still being found. The process of settling into their new surroundings is abruptly disturbed by the discovery of a body, dumped behind a bricked up entrance to a cave in the woods, and the simultaneous appearance of a mysteriously quiet little girl. When the little girl arrives on the families doorstep, the mother decides to take her in for the night until they can visit the authorities in the morning, however when she begins mimicking the voice of their own daughter, it soon triggers a series of spooky events.
While the plot is certainly nothing new, with the grieving mother escaping to a small town to start afresh being done plenty of times before (perhaps most stunningly in Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine), here the supernatural element works in its favour to set The Mimic apart. It also helps that, much like Hide and Seek, Jung has once again enlisted a top drawer cast to anchor his tale. In the lead as the mother is Yum Jung-ah, a familiar face during the Korea horror genres heyday in the early 00’s, with roles in Tell Me Something, H, A Tale of Two Sisters, and Park Chan-wook’s Monster, the Korean segment in the 2004 Asian horror-omnibus Three.
Playing her husband is Park Hyuk-kwon, recently seen in supporting roles in the likes of A Taxi Driver and Tunnel, and the daughters shoes are filled by Shin Rin-ah, who played the younger version of Seolhyun’s character in Memoir of a Murderer. Perhaps most ironic, is the inclusion of Her Jin as the mother, in a role not entirely dissimilar to the one she played in The Wailing. Despite the family unit being made up of four, the narrative gradually comes to focus on the relationship between Jung-ah and the mysterious little girl, played by relative newcomer Bang Yoo-seol. Much of The Mimic’s mid-section rests on Yoo-seol’s shoulders, as her presence (and increasingly extended stay in the family household) is used to crank up the tension, rather than the use of cheap jump scares or creeping shadows.
This proves to be both effective and problematic. Once Yoo-seol does start talking, she insists her name is the same as their own daughter, and also replicates her voice. For the audience it delivers the expected shivers, however Jung-ah seems to accept the fact as coincidence that this mysterious child shares the same name as her own daughter, and brushes off Hyuk-kwon’s claims that she sounds the same by saying “all children sound the same that age.” Despite sharing the same household, so much time is dedicated to Jung-ah and Yoo-seol’s relationship that the rest of the family begin to feel like peripheral characters, with Rin-ah in particular receiving short thrift.
Thankfully, we don’t stay in spooky-child-in-the-house territory for the duration, and while the use of (as expected with the nature of the story) audio rather than visuals to create a sense of terror, this is after all the tale of a white haired tiger spirit that dwells in a mountain cave. To his credit, Jung shows he’s not afraid to embrace the more visceral elements of the tale, with a finale that takes place in said cave against a shaman possessed by the tiger spirit, played with an enthusiastic vigour by Lee Joon-hyuk (RV: Resurrected Victims). The darkness of the cave plays its part to keep the audience on the edge of its seat, and there’s some neat visual tricks played with the use of mirrors. It’s hard to imagine a scenario done more in the horror genre than the helpless female being stalked by a murderous force of evil, but Jung still gets some mileage out of it.
Not everything is perfect with The Mimic though, and it’s largely to do with Jung’s treatment of the supporting characters. There are several instances when characters appear as a thinly guised plot device, to other instances when there seems to be no apparent purpose for them to be in the narrative whatsoever. An example of the former is that of an elderly neighbour, who spends any scene she appears in staring at the family from a distance, until she finally makes contact with Jung-ah, and gives her/the audience an exposition dump as to who the girl is and her connection to the cave. She then disappears from the narrative, having dispensed the required information. Another is that of a newly arrived in town police offer, who seems to be investigating the little girl and the cave, but by the ending has been completely forgotten about.
Similar to the issues found in Hide and Seek, Jung’s script also falters during the final moments, in what seems to be a case of knowing where it wants to be, but not quite having the dialogue to sell the decisions the characters make in a believable manner. One of the biggest hopes I’d held for The Mimic was that such instances would be remedied, given the 4 years that have passed since his debut, however it appears that the messy ending could be an inherent problem for Jung if what we see here is anything to go by.
With that being said, The Mimic is a much more consistent ride than Hide and Seek. Staying true to its folk tale origins throughout, it effectively builds a sense of foreboding, and throws in at least one jump out of your seat moment. For horror fans, it’ll no doubt be a mildly entertaining diversion, and for fans of Yum Jung-ah, it’s great to see her headlining a horror movie after 15 years spent dabbling in other genres. The Korean horror genre has been going through a drought for a long time, and while Jung’s latest isn’t going to be the movie to revive it, the best I can say is that it certainly doesn’t contribute to it.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6/10
