Fox with Nine Tails, The (1994) Review

“The Fox with Nine Tails” Theatrical Poster

Director: Park Heonsu
Cast: Ko So-young, Jung Woo-sung, Dok-go Young-jae, Bang Eun-hee, Lee Ki-young
Running Time: 115 min. 

By Paul Bramhall  

Korean cinema was in a transitionary period during the 1990’s, a decade which would culminate in its film industry achieving an international breakthrough thanks to Kang Je-gyu’s bombastic action movie Shiri. The start of the decade was a very different story, with Korea opening up to import foreign cinema, the early 90’s saw little attention paid to local movies even by a domestic audience, as a flood of Hong Kong productions gave rise to what became known as the ‘Hong Kong Wave’. Stars like Joey Wong, Leslie Cheung, and Chow Yun Fat gained massive followings on Korean shores, and by the mid-90’s one particular movie would find success by taking inspiration from a certain popular Hong Kong fantasy series. 

In 1994 The Fox with Nine Tails hit cinema screens and was a landmark production in a couple of ways. First, and arguably the most interesting from a cinematic perspective, is that it holds the honor of being the first Korean production to use CGI, paving the way for the likes of The Gingko Bed, The Soul Guardians, and Ghost in Love which would follow later in the decade. Secondly, it was also one of the first productions (and definitely the first supernatural one) to use chaebol (large family run conglomerates like Samsung) funding to secure a sizable budget. Combine both of these elements together, and it’s easy to see why The Fox with Nine Tails holds an important place in the history of modern Korean cinema.

The nine tailed fox spirit, or gumiho as it’s called in Korean (which is also the Korean title), is a popular creature from folktales in Korea. Its ability to take human form, usually as a beautiful female, has seen the seductive spirit become a popular fixture on the small screen, appearing in Korean dramas such as 2010’s My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, and more recently 2020’s Tale of the Nine Tailed. Heck, there’s even a brand of soju that uses the nine tailed fox for its marketing (Saero, for anyone who wants to give it a shot!). In 1994 though, the onscreen interpretation of the gumiho clearly owes a debt of thanks to Ching Siu-Tung’s A Chinese Ghost Story trilogy, a series of Hong Kong fantasy wuxia’s released between 1987 and 1991. More specifically, Joey Wong’s lovelorn ghost and her desire to experience human love, despite the rules of the netherworld strictly forbidding it.

In The Fox with Nine Tails its Ko So-young (Project Makeover, Double Agent) that steps into the titular role, here making her starring role debut, as the human incarnation of a fox spirit living on Earth who needs to consume a human soul if she’s to survive her upcoming 1000^th birthday. Despite it being her debut, So-young makes for an effectively enchanting presence as the fox spirit that works in a bar, ultimately befriending and falling in love with a rough around the edges taxi driver, despite knowing she needs to drain his lifeforce if she’s to live. The role of the taxi driver offers up another debut performance, this time of thespian Jung Woo-sung (Steel Rain, Asura: City of Madness). While Woo-sung doesn’t quite have the screen presence here that he’d bring later in his career, as the rough but still relatively innocent taxi driver he still brings enough charisma to make it apparent why he’d go onto to have such an enduring career. 

Offsetting the youthful leads (So-young was just 22 and Woo-sung 21 at the time of its release) is Dok-go Young-jae (White Badge, The General’s Son 3), who was already a veteran of over 30 productions dating back to the early 70’s by the time he appeared here. Playing a lowly worker from hell (literally), a pair of bumbling higher ups mistakenly send him to Earth based on his ID number being 69, when they were supposed to send number 96. Tasked with finding and capturing So-young to send her back to the spirit realm, there’s a nice inclusion of uniquely Korean culture in the way he goes about his mission, seeking out a shaman that worships him to help out. In Korean shamanism every shaman is believed to have been chosen by a specific God to be their earthly vessel, so to see the belief used in such a playfully commercial way was a nostalgic reminder of when Korean productions were still catered purely to a local audience.

Sticking with the theme of debuts, The Fox with Nine Tails marked the directorial debut of Park Heonsu. As a director Heonsu wasn’t exactly prolific, only going on to helm another 4 features over the next 17 years, comprising 1996’s The Real Man, 2000’s Chu Nomyoung Bakery, 2004’s Two Guys, and 2011’s Perfect Partner. Behind the scenes he was much more active, often credited as being part of the production crew, and remains active even today. The Hong Kong influence certainly feels strong in his debut, to a point that it overshadows any impression of his own directorial identity, however that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The tonal shifts and genre blending feels typical of Hong Kong movie making of the era, with epic romance, supernatural fantasy, bursts of violent action, and broad comedy all thrown into the mixer in such a way that proceedings never become dull.

By nature of the era in which it was made the CGI in question is far from utilised for every fantastical element onscreen, instead working alongside practical effects and only used sparingly for certain moments. Hell is portrayed as a vast subway station for which CGI is used for the trains, but the subway platform itself is populated with a large number of extras, a setting which feels more than a little influenced by Chang Cheh’s portrayal of hell in his 1980 production Heaven and Hell. Similarly a scene in which Young-jae finds himself run over and flattened by a truck is both funny as it was intended, as well as thanks to the now dated CGI effect. 

On the practical side wirework is effectively used to portray So-young’s flights of fancy through the forest in her nightgown, clearly emulating the Joey Wong aesthetic from A Chinese Ghost Story. While CGI is used to make the transition of her face into one with fox like prosthetics, the fox makeup itself admittedly doesn’t quite hit the mark, looking more like a hairier version of Anjelica Huston’s witch transformation in Nicolas Roeg’s 1990 adaptation of The Witches. Plus, rather than having nine tails, we just get one what appears to be particularly long white feather boa. Despite this though, there’s something undeniably charming about the effort that’s gone into creating the transformation, and I’d arguably still take this version than one which has been created entirely by CGI.

As much as I speak positively about how the effects work and influence of HK cinema makes The Fox with Nine Tails a product of its era, on the flip side there’s also an unfortunate instance of violence towards women that permeated a lot of 1990’s and early 2000’s Korean cinema. While violence towards women in and of itself isn’t an issue when it serves a narrative purpose, when it’s done in a misogynistic and almost causal way, by a character who’s supposed to be someone the audience relates to no less, then it always makes for uncomfortable viewing. For reference, I have similar issues with the likes of My Wife Is a Gangster, Two Cops 3, and No Blood No Tears. While in The Fox with Nine Tails the scene is mercifully brief, and the context in which it happens is ultimately resolved, whatever you think about the current quality of Korea’s output, I’m glad its film industry has largely moved away from this kind of misogyny.

The scene certainly isn’t enough to overshadow what’s rightfully considered a landmark of Korean cinema. While The Fox with Nine Tails is usually brought up in the context of it being the first production to use CGI, it also deserves to be brought up as an entertaining slice of mid-90’s supernatural fantasy. By swapping out the period setting of those movies that it drew inspiration from, and placing the characters in a contemporary one, the result feels both refreshing and unique. While Korean cinema would go on to find its own distinctive identity, there’s something about this era when it was still drawing inspiration from its Hong Kong neighbour that I’ve always enjoyed, and there’s certainly plenty to enjoy from the debut of Park Heonsu, Ko So-young, and Jung Woo-sung.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7.5/10