“Seire” Theatrical Poster
Director: Park Kang
Cast: Shim Eun-woo, Seo Hyun-woo, Ryu Abel, Ko Eun-Min, Kim Woo-Kyum, Jeon Woon-Jong
Running Time: 100 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Taking its name from a traditional Korean custom that follows childbirth, Seire refers to a newborns first 21 days, during which time the entrance of a property has a protective rope hung on it to ward off evil spirits, and the baby should have minimal interaction with those outside immediate family. The reason behind the custom is that newborns are believed to be at their most vulnerable to bad luck and curses during their first 3 weeks. In the opening we meet a new mother played by Shim Eun-woo (The Closed Ward, Each), who thanks to her mother is a firm believer in sticking to tradition, while the restrictive rules of the custom see her husband, played by Seo Hyun-woo (Escape, Thunderbird), looking forward to getting it over with.
Despite being supportive of his wife’s beliefs, Hyun-woo is clearly exhausted by the challenge of being a new father while balancing a busy job, and finds himself increasingly haunted by dreams of rotten apples and a woman who’s not his wife. The woman turns out to be his ex-girlfriend of 6 years, played by Ryu Abel (Young Adult Matters, A French Woman), and when he wakes up one morning there’s a text revealing she’s passed away. Invited to the 3-day funeral ritual that’s about to be held, Hyun-woo feels obliged to go, even though attending a funeral during the seire period is strictly forbidden. Considered to be an open invitation to bad luck, Eun-woo understandably asks him to skip it and send condolence money instead.
Despite agreeing, he ultimately decides to attend just to briefly show his face, during which he meets his ex’s twin sister (also played by Ryu Abel) who he’d forgotten existed. Hoping he’d be willing to be a part of the 3-day funeral ritual due to his former relationship with her sister, Hyun-woo finds himself reluctantly agreeing, but at home odd things start to occur, with Eun-woo’s pregnant sister who lives next door also beginning to experience complications. As expected, Seire proves to be a slow burn in mounting dread, unfolding within the surroundings of the start of life and the end of it, and deeply entrenched within the traditional Korean customs that are attached to both.
Helmed by Park Kang, while he’s sat in the director’s chair before for the short films Choke (2015) and Deal (2019), its Seire that marks his feature length debut (produced by Korea’s National University of Arts), and it’s an unsettlingly effective one that portrays how the superstition’s behind Korea’s ancient traditions can bleed into everyday life. The narrative places the audience in the shoes of Hyun-woo, which is a smart move since his lack of familiarity with the customs at the heart of the story also act as an introduction to them for the audience. It also serves to make his dilemma between staying at home or briefly showing up for the funeral feel relatable, and since his character doesn’t place much weight on the traditions he’s resigned himself to follow, his decision to attend is portrayed as an understandable one.
However it’s also during the funeral that Kang gradually weaves in a sense of unease that permeates through much of the 100-minute runtime. Things don’t feel quite right, and when Hyun-woo comes home to find the baby has a fever, it sets off a chain of events that prove difficult to undo. Despite being a feature length debut director Kang shows an assured hand in using cinematic language to tell his story, with one particularly effective sequence juxtaposing scenes of the body being prepared for the burial ritual, alongside Hyun-woo and Eun-woo frantically trying to ease their newborns fever. The contrast between the end of a life and the start of one is kept ambiguously foreboding, never spoon feeding, but always giving just enough to know that things aren’t as they should be.
The conflict between modernity and the traditions of the past has always been a recurring theme in the Korean horror genre, from 1981’s Suddenly in the Dark to more recent productions like 2016’s The Wailing, and Seire explores similar territory. What makes it feel refreshing is the decision to set the story in the period immediately after childbirth, which also serves to set it apart from other similarly set Korean horror movies like the early 2000’s productions Unborn but Forgotten and Acacia. The lack of sleep any new parent goes through acts as another way to crank up the tension when odd things start to happen, with the lethargy Hyun-woo imbues his character making him equal parts relatable and frustrating. On the one hands its admirable how he still does everything he can to make sure Eun-woo and the baby are ok, but on the other it frustrates when he begins to dismiss opportunities to reverse the perceived bad luck.
After featuring in small supporting roles for a number of years, it’s a joy to see Seo Hyun-woo in more meatier roles recently, and his performance is a significant part of what makes the underlying horror work so well. His constant state of tiredness brings us with him into a world where everything feels slightly numb, like when we see him visibly rattled when he initially meets his ex’s twin sister, but then quickly returns to the lethargic demeanour he’s established so far. Seire is ultimately about Hyun-woo and the person he is today attempting to reconcile with the person he was in the past, and Kang uses the characters dreams as a way to fragment and distort the narrative. We’re never quite sure if Hyun-woo’s dreams are him re-visiting his past, or are the influence of something more sinister in the present, hinting at something that happened which both the audience and Eun-woo are kept in the dark about.
Kang is in full control of the disorientating plot structure though, with the various scenes of past and present eventually slotting into place like a jigsaw puzzle, painting a fuller picture of what’s unfolding. Even then the narrative stops short of explicitly spelling out some of the darker scenarios that Seire portrays, instead leaving the audience to draw their own conclusions (and subsequent judgements) around what took place. It’s a daring decision, drawing the line at casting certain characters in a horrific light, and instead offering up just enough detail to allow the viewer to fill in the gaps. Whether they choose to do so or not is on the audience’s shoulders, with certain characters increasingly painted in shades of grey, as the question is posed of if the actions from the past can ever really be escaped in the future.
In many ways Kang’s debut foreshadows both Jason Yu’s Sleep from the following year, and Jang Jae-hyeon’s Exhuma from 2024, in the themes it explores and the way it chooses to do so. Despite clearly not having the budget (or the stars) of either, arguably the result is one that makes Seire a more unsettling experience. There’s a gradual build-up of oppressiveness, of something evil getting ever nearer, and the limited locations prove to be one of the productions biggest strengths. While far from being a visceral exercise in horror, mostly keeping the tension on a slow burn throughout, Kang does throw in one scene of effective gore that acts as a reminder that we’re watching a horror movie, and it’s one that won’t be forgotten easily.
As a mid-budget slice of horror Seire successfully subverts the usual Korean go-to horror tropes to offer up a fresh take on the genre, choosing to get under your skin more than make you jump out of it, an approach it executes with aplomb. Easily marking Park Kang as a new talent to watch out for, the final scene goes for a killer gut punch that’s either cruelly or joyously left open for interpretation, but either way it’s one that feels nothing less than appropriate. Strongly recommended.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 8/10
