“Dark Nuns” Theatrical Poster
Director: Kwon Hyeok-Jae
Cast: Song Hye-Kyo, Jeon Yeo-Bin, Lee Jin-Uk, Heo Jun-Ho, Moon Woo-Jin, Kim Guk-Hee
Running Time: 114 min.
By Paul Bramhall
It’s been a decade since the release of 2015’s The Priests, a movie for which its Korean title directly translates to Dark Priests, an approach which has been taken quite literally for its 2025 sequel – Dark Nuns. Despite The Priests being a straight forward exorcism flick, the fact that the genre was largely ignored in Korean cinema 10 years ago (in my review from the time of its release I mentioned “it’s surprising that we haven’t seen more movies from the local industry pitting the church against some sort of evil spirit”) made it an unexpected hit, leading to a slew of Korean exorcism movies in the succeeding years. Within the limitations the genre operates in (person becomes possessed – meet member of the church with tragic backstory/complicated past – perform exorcism), it’s a legitimate question to wonder if Dark Nuns can do anything to differentiate itself from the now overpopulated exorcism landscape.
At least from a character perspective, as the title alludes to, it can. So far in the Korean takes on the genre the exorcisms are always performed by male priests, so swapping things up to have the heavy lifting performed by a pair of nuns makes for a welcome change. Song Hye-kyo (Hwang Jin Yi, A Reason to Live) steps into the lead role, returning to the big screen for the first time since 2014’s My Brilliant Life, having spent the decade in between focused Continue reading →
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