Nominated in several categories at the 2024 Baeksang Arts Awards and the highest grossing film in 2024 in South Korea, “Exhuma” (2024) involves four professionals who handle wealthy families’ supernatural problems. Their latest case involves the Park family whose base is in South Korea, but the youngest member was born in California and has never stopped crying. The curse stems from an ancestor that dates back four generations. From the beginning, the case is unusual, and the oldest member of the team, Kim Sang-deok (Choi Min-sol), a geomancer or Feng Shui expert, has reservations, but the audacious shaman, Hwa-rim (Kim Go-eun), comes up with a way to excavate the Park ancestor’s coffin so it can be cremated, but her workaround cannot anticipate the human and supernatural obstacles which will complicate the case even further than expected.
Hwa-rim and her tattoo covered protégé, Bon-gil (Lee Do-hyun), are not people who appear to be shamans. They are fashionable, young, and gorgeous and easily navigate any social strata whether it is having drinks with her colleagues in their humble offices or entering estates of privilege. Bon-gil is a bit underwritten. Hwa-rim delivers a monologue about his history otherwise he is just shown at the gym or sleeping on a plane. Other than his lock step devotion to Hwa-rim, it is hard to get a sense of him as a person. After Hwa-rim recognizes that the Park family’s problem is too serious and will involve more than a ritual, she enlists Kim and his mortician partner, Yeong-geun (Yoo Hae-jin), a Christian who likes to swipe expensive items from the dead, with a huge financial incentive. Yeong-geun provides some comedic relief as the most down-to-earth, pragmatic, least supernaturally experienced person on the team. Kim has enough gravitas to seem like someone who is not entirely in it for the money. He gets most affected while watching the Park family descend into a sea of tribulations that Job may find stressful.
Kim, who became famous as the love interest in “Goblin,” is unrecognizable here. Her acting was based on studying real life shamans, and the rituals reminded me of Native American chanting. It is such a physical and free performance, especially when she smoothly wipes soot or blood across her face. It is such a contrast to the restrained, sleek and slick businesswoman who negotiates with the Park family.
The theme of greed is the cause of every character’s problem. The Park family may be wealthy enough to prosper in two countries, but the source of that wealth is problematic as all will discover once they excavate the Park family patriarch’s grandfather. Even though the four professionals know that if the ritual fails, they could die, against their better judgment, they proceed because of the following incentives: a huge payday–$500,000 for Kim and Yeong-geun, and a child’s well-being hangs in the balance. These two incentives are revisited throughout “Exhuma” starting with the Park baby then all Korean children as they uncover a supernatural force that poses an indomitable threat. People’s attitude towards their children or their spiritual children is a great way to gauge character. Adults who see their offspring as property and in complete service to them are evil, and those who are willing to sacrifice themselves for the safety of their heirs are not and find redemption.
When “Exhuma” begins, it starts very bright and beautiful, but once the coffin is not interred, it rains, and the gloom permeates every scene. In the opening narration, Hwa-rim clearly feels superior to her customers who shy away from the shadows, which she seeks without fear, but by the end of the film, each one of these professionals lose their cool and confidence. At best, they are left cowering for protection behind totems or spirits, and at worst, they lie bloody and in danger of succumbing permanently to their wounds. They are right to be scared because each time they think that they are done facing a challenge, a new, bigger one takes its place. Honestly, no one will be able to predict the literal and metaphoric big bad, which is a nice change if you see a lot of horror movies. It is nice to not have any tropes even if it is only because you’re an ignorant American unfamiliar with another culture’s superstitions. If there is a flaw, the professionals know better, but ignore their expertise and plow forward anyway or procrastinate. They know what they should do so they are responsible for a lot of the ensuing chaos, which can be frustrating.
South Korean films, particularly horror, share common elements. The horror is rooted in the real-life atrocities of Japanese occupation of Korea when it was one country long before World War II. In Asia, Japan was the colonizer in chief, and for those unfamiliar with the Pacific theater, Japan allied with the Nazis though they had different supremacist ideologies. Even though it is not a perfect analogy, it may be helpful to imagine that when someone is talking about Japan, it would be the equivalent of a Western person speaking disgustedly about Nazis. “Exhuma” weaves this historical horror in a way that retroactively seems predictable but culminates in the denouement in a mind-blowing way that has concrete, realistic apocalyptic implications. It will be hard to wrap your head around, but it is not necessary to completely understand the intersection between the supernatural and real-life conflicts to get the gist. The evil originated five hundred years ago, and if the four fail, the deleterious effects can impact more future generations. Writer and director Jang Jae-hyun is so deliciously salty that he consigns one Japanese sympathizer to a horrible afterlife.
The narrative is divided into six chapters like a novel. The titles offer a clue regarding what will follow, but only seem obvious in retrospect. They are so understated yet descriptive. After the rousing David versus Goliath showdown, the ending felt a bit anti-climactic, which included an incidental commercial placement of bottles of Coca-Cola, and had such a huge mood shift that it felt too pat and unrealistic in comparison to the rest of “Exhuma.” Jang probably wanted to give viewers a break after hours of increasing intensity and rising stakes, but it swung so hard away from the oppressive gloom that it felt jarring and was not as a fluid fit.
The best, most unexpected movies come out of South Korea. I spent a weekend in the theaters watching horror films, and “Exhuma” was so far ahead of the pack that it was not even sporting. It was meaningful, gorgeous, well-acted and unpredictable. Even if you normally shy away from subtitles, this movie is worth the challenge. The two-hour fourteen-minute runtime will feel like nothing.
