“Exhuma” Theatrical Poster
Director: Jang Jae-Hyon
Cast: Choi Min-sik, Yoo Hae-jin, Kim Go-eun, Lee Do-hyun, Jeon Jin-Ki, Kim Jae-cheol, Hong Seo-jun
Running Time: 134 min.
By Paul Bramhall
While many directors in the Korean film industry tend to gravitate between different genres, there’s something admirable about how director and writer Jang Jae-hyeon has carved out a niche for himself helming supernatural horror mysteries. After making his feature length debut with The Priests in 2015 (an expansion of his own 2014 short film 12th Assistant Deacon), he’d write the script for Im Dae-woong’s House of the Disappeared the following year, before delivering his sophomore feature with 2019’s Svaha: The Sixth Finger. Across just 3 productions Jae-hyeon has already established his own distinctive style, and with his latest Exhuma he delves deeper into the world of Korean shamanism and its practices.
After a wealthy Korean family living in L.A. become convinced there’s a curse on them, one that’s now affecting the new-born baby of the current patriarch, they call in a well reputed shaman played by Kim Go-eun (Coin Locker Girl, Memories of the Sword) to investigate. Travelling to the U.S. with her disciple, played by popular K-drama actor Lee Do-hyun, the pair believe the family are being afflicted by the spirit of a departed ancestor, and once back on Korean soil enlist the assistance of a geomancer specialising in feng shui and his undertaker colleague. Played by Choi Min-sik (Heart Blackened, The New World) and Yoo Hae-jin (Confidential Assignment, A Taxi Driver) respectively, upon discovering the ancestors grave on a patch of land steeped in “vile” energy, Min-sik advises not to take the matter any further for fear of the consequences.
Ultimately though the plight of the baby makes him look past the risks, and together the four decide to combine their skills to exhume the coffin and have the remains cremated, dispelling the evil energy that it’s been buried under for so long. However when a spirit is inadvertently released, soon the death toll begins to rise, leaving Min-sik and Go-eun no choice but to combine their respective fields of expertise to try and stop it before it’s too late. I ended my review for Jae-hyeon’s previous movie Svaha: The Sixth Finger by describing it “as a supernatural mystery flick with sprinkles of horror scattered on top…the finished product just needs a bit more polish”, and with Exhuma that polish is in plentiful supply.
Like both of his previous times in the director’s chair Jae-hyeon has brough onboard a stellar cast who anchor Exhuma, and it’s especially a pleasure to see such a legendary actor like Choi Min-sik making his first foray into a supernatural mystery. The script strikes a nice balance between the mysticism of such practices and their application in reality, with Min-sik’s geomancer partnering with Hae-jin’s undertaker being the ideal business relationship – he chooses the plot of land, and Hae-jin conducts the practicalities of the ceremony itself. Similarly when Go-eun initially approaches the pair the first point of consideration is how much they’ll be paid, making the characters feel both relatable and grounded, which has the effect of making the horror elements when they’re introduced all the more affecting.
While the theme of evil spirits causing trouble for the living is certainly not a new one in Korean cinema, Exhuma differentiates itself from similar genre offerings by the amount of attention it places on the rituals themselves. Jae-hyeon clearly has a lot of respect for Korean shamanism, and many of the different rituals in a shaman’s repertoire are incorporated into the narrative, presented in a way that goes into a level of detail rarely seen. I’ve long been an advocate of Kim Go-eun being one the best actresses working in the Korean film industry (I’d love to see a director cast her and Jeon Jong-seo in the same production), and here she delivers a powerhouse performance, one that shows complete commitment to the role and is a joy to watch.
However at almost 135 minutes (despite it being an average runtime for a Korean production!), it takes a lot of talent to maintain the gradual build up of dread that permeates so effectively throughout the first hour. While the story being told is done so in a way that feels fresh and never anything less than gripping, ultimately it’s still a familiar one, so to his credit Jae-hyeon opts to pull what I like to refer to as a Project Wolf Hunting around the halfway mark. I always try to keep any review as spoiler-free as possible, and so for those who haven’t seen Kim Hong-seon’s 2022 splatter fest, check it out. My reference is in relation to how in that movie, a completely unexpected turn of events around the halfway mark cranks the narrative up to eleven – with a caveat that some audiences may love the extra volume, and others may find it to be a little too noisy for their tastes.
It would be a spoiler to go into the direction that Exhuma heads into during its 2nd half, however it’s fair to say that the tone of building suspense through the unseen is swapped out for a more visceral fear of a very real tangible threat, one that definitely wasn’t expected. In his own way the change in direction made me think Jae-hyeon is paying tribute to some of the vintage Hong Kong horror comedies of the golden era like Mr. Vampire and Close Encounter of the Spooky Kind (just minus the comedy part – although to Jae-hyeon’s credit, he does manage to execute one perfect laugh out loud moment amidst the seriousness). It’s a risky move but an admirable one, with audience reactions likely to split into those who are willing to go along with it, and those who will probably feel that the narrative has jumped the shark. Personally I fall into the former category, and found the direction the plot goes in to be an entertaining one.
It is worth noting that while the rituals are always contextualised, one important piece of background history not explained in much detail (likely as it’s taken as presumed knowledge for a Korean audience) that’s useful to know going into Exhuma, is around the iron stakes that Japan buried around Korea during their colonial period. Essentially it involved Japanese feng shui experts burying a number of stakes into the ground at important feng shui coordinates, the intention being to destroy the Korean peninsulas flow of positive energy, which they believed would keep the population weak willed. Post World War II the government actually encouraged mountain hiking in the hope all the stakes could be found and removed, as Japan (even to this day) never did reveal the locations of where they were all buried. It may not make much sense now, but trust me when you watch Exhuma it will!
Indeed one aspect of Jae-hyeon’s latest that shouldn’t be considered a spoiler is that the forces responsible for the evil end up being Japanese. As much as his passion for Korea’s shamanistic practices clearly shows through, so does a certain anger towards Japan’s treatment of Korea in the past (a tone which is flagged in the opening scene, when Go-eun makes a point of correcting a flight attendant who speaks to her in Japanese). While it’s easy to feel fatigued by Japan being the go-to villains in Korean cinema, thankfully the one-dimensional portrayal is avoided here, and by incorporating a little-known part of Korean history (at least to a foreign audience), Jae-hyeon has once more created an original premise on which to hang his third directorial outing.
Exhuma is easily Jang Jae-hyeon’s most mature work to date, and many of the criticisms of his previous 2 directorial outings are here nowhere to be seen, a sign of a director who’s come to understand what does and doesn’t work when it comes to creating an effective supernatural horror mystery. The fact that actors who are known to be picky about their roles like Choi Min-sik and Kim Go-eun are both onboard is a testament to that maturation, and the end result is one that doesn’t disappoint. With Sleep in 2023 and now Exhuma in 2024 I daresay that, just like the spirit in the movie itself, Korean horror is also back from the dead with a vengeance.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 8/10
