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A Tale of Two Sisters (Korean: 장화, 홍련; RR: Janghwa, Hongryeon; lit. Rose Flower, Red Lotus) is a 2003 South Korean psychological horror film written and directed by Kim Jee-woon. The film is inspired by a Joseon-era folktale entitled "Janghwa Hongryeon jeon", which has been adapted to film several times. The plot focuses on a recently released patient from a mental institution who returns home with her sister, only to face disturbing events while living with their new unhinged stepmother.
| A Tale of Two Sisters | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Hangul | 장화, 홍련 |
| Hanja | |
| Revised Romanization | Janghwa, Hongryeon |
| McCune–Reischauer | Changhwa, Hongnyŏn |
| Directed by | Kim Jee-woon |
| Written by | Kim Jee-woon |
| Produced by |
|
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Lee Mo-gae |
| Edited by | Ko Im-pyo |
| Music by | Lee Byung-woo |
Production company | B.O.M. Film Productions Co. |
| Distributed by |
|
Release date |
|
Running time | 114 minutes[1] |
| Country | South Korea |
| Language | Korean |
| Budget | $3.7 million[2] |
| Box office | $1 million[3] |
The film opened to very strong commercial and critical reception and won Best Picture at the 2004 Fantasporto Film Festival.[4] It is the highest-grossing South Korean horror film and the first South Korean picture to be screened in American theatres.[5] An English-language remake titled The Uninvited was released in 2009 to mixed reviews.
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A teenage girl, Su-mi, is being treated for shock and psychosis in a mental institution. Soon after, she is released and returns home to her family's secluded country estate with her father, Moo-hyeon, and younger sister, Su-yeon, the latter of whom she is protective of. The sisters have a cold reunion with their stepmother, Eun-joo, who constantly requires medication. Eun-joo also has a strained relationship with Moo-hyeon, both of them enduring a sexless marriage.
Su-mi and Eun-joo verbally clash multiple times. Moo-hyeon is disinterested in Su-mi's complaints and rejects her request to remove a wardrobe in Su-yeon's room, as it seems to upset Su-yeon. One night, Su-yeon has a nightmare of her late mother's ghost and flees into Su-mi's room for comforting. Afterwards, Su-mi also has a nightmare with a ghost while Su-yeon is sleeping next to her. The next day, Su-mi finds family photos which reveal that Eun-joo was formerly an in-home nurse for her then-terminally ill mother. She discovers bruises on her sister's arms and suspects Eun-joo to be responsible, which Su-yeon neither confirms nor denies. Instead, she begins sobbing and runs away when Su-mi gets angry about her silence. Su-mi confronts Eun-joo about the bruises, but Eun-joo refuses to apologize, explaining that they were "retribution."
That night, the sisters' uncle, Sun-kyu, and aunt, Mi-hee, arrive for dinner, and Eun-joo tells bewildering stories involving Sun-kyu, which he denies remembering. Mi-hee suddenly suffers a violent seizure and almost suffocates. After recovering on their way home, Mi-hee tells her husband that she saw "a girl" beneath the kitchen sink during her seizure. Eun-joo searches the kitchen when the cupboard below the sink opens by itself. She sees a hair clip on the ground, but the ghost girl violently grabs her arm when she tries to pick it up.
Eun-joo's relationship with her stepdaughters further deteriorates after she finds her pet birds killed and her personal photos defaced. She believes either one or both girls are responsible and locks Su-yeon in the wardrobe. Su-mi releases her and tells Moo-hyeon, who had just found and buried another dead bird, about Eun-joo's abuse. Moo-hyeon begs her to stop acting out and exasperatedly reveals that Su-yeon is dead. Su-mi refuses to believe it as she is sure her sister is right next to her, sobbing uncontrollably. The next morning, Eun-joo drags a bloodied sack through the house, whipping it in anger. Su-mi believes that Su-yeon is inside the sack. Eun-joo and Su-mi get into a violent physical altercation. Moo-hyeon arrives to find an unconscious Su-mi.
It is ultimately revealed that Su-mi and her father were alone in the house all along. Su-mi is suffering from dissociative identity disorder and is a system with two alters: herself and a ruder, more distant variation of her stepmother Eun-joo. The "body" in the sack that Su-mi was whipping was actually porcelain dolls, and she was also the one who killed the pet birds. Su-yeon is also revealed to be long dead, her presence having been a hallucination by Su-Mi. Moo-hyeon and the real Eun-joo, a much different woman than what Su-mi had envisioned, and had asked to come and help, send Su-mi back to the mental institution. Eun-joo tries to reconcile with Su-mi, promising to visit her as often as she can, but Su-mi rebuffs her and forcefully grabs her arm, mirroring the injury Su-mi had discovered on Su-yeon days earlier. After they leave, Su-mi hears Su-yeon's ghost whistle their mother's favorite tune. That night, Eun-joo hears the same tune and footsteps in Su-yeon's old bedroom, revealing that the ghost actually exists. Luring her to her former bedroom, Su-yeon's ghost crawls out of the wardrobe and kills Eun-joo. Meanwhile, Su-mi lies back in her bed and smiles with a rolling tear, finally finding some kind of peace, knowing her sister is still with her in some form.
A flashback reveals the day that led Su-mi to be institutionalized. While her terminally ill mother is still alive, Moo-hyeon engages in an adulterous affair with Eun-joo, when she was still their in-home nurse. This upsets the sisters and, after comforting Su-yeon following a confrontation during a family dinner, drives their mother to kill herself in Su-yeon's bedroom wardrobe. Finding her mother dead, Su-yeon grabs her corpse in shock and begins to shake the wardrobe in a panic, trying to free her. The wardrobe collapses on top of them, which everyone in the house and outside hears. Eun-joo investigates and sees Su-yeon thrashing and suffocating. She runs out in a panic, but hesitates and turns back around in the hallway. However, in that same moment Su-mi runs into her. Eun-joo asks her about the noise, but Su-mi ignores the question and mouths off at Eun-ju for intruding on their family's lives. Lashing out at each other, they have an argument while Su-yeon is shown to still be alive but in pain and slowly dying in her room. Angry, Eun-joo grabs Su-mi's arm and tells her that she "will regret this moment" and, unbeknownst to Su-mi, leaves Su-yeon to die just to spite her. Su-mi storms out of the house, leaving Eun-joo visibly shaking in the hallway, while Su-yeon cries and struggles under the wardrobe. Su-mi walks away from the house in a quick, but decelerating stride, watched by Eun-joo from an upstairs window. Su-yeon dies, begging her sister to help her with her last breath.
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- Im Soo-jung as Bae Su-mi
- Moon Geun-young as Bae Su-yeon
- Yum Jung-ah as Heo Eun-joo
- Kim Kap-soo as Bae Moo-hyeon
- Lee Seung-bi as Mi-hee (Eun-joo's sister in law)
- Lee Dae-yeon as Su-mi's doctor
- Park Mi-hyun as Mrs Bae (Moo-hyeon's first wife and Su-mi's and Su-yeon's mother)
- Woo Ki-hong as Sun-kyu (Eun-joo's brother)
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2008) |
The film is loosely based on a popular Korean fairy tale, "Janghwa Hongryeon jeon", which has been adapted into film versions[6] in 1924, 1936, 1956, 1962, 1972, and 2009.
In the original Korean folktale, the sisters' names are Janghwa and Hongryeon (Rose Flower and Red Lotus). In the film, they are Su-mi and Su-yeon (though the names still hold the meaning, Rose and Lotus).
Im Soo-jung (Su-mi) originally auditioned for the role of Su-yeon (played by Moon Geun-young).
Kim Jee-woon originally wanted Jun Ji-hyun to play Su-mi, but she refused the role because she thought the script was too scary. Her next film was an unrelated horror film, The Uninvited.
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Home media
The film was released on DVD on March 29, 2005, by Palisades Tartan. The film was originally announced for a Blu-ray release for October 22, 2013, by Tartan but the disc was never released as the company ceased operations. The DVD is now out of print. The film eventually received a region-free Blu-ray in Korea on October 14, 2013. Though the disc also offers English subtitles, the extras are all in Korean.[7][8][9]
In 2023, Umbrella Entertainment is scheduled to release the film on Blu-Ray in June 2023.
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Box office
It is the highest-grossing Korean horror film and the first to be screened in American theaters upon release.[5] With a limited American release starting 3 December 2004, it grossed $72,541.[3]
Critical response
A Tale of Two Sisters garnered very positive reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 86% based on 63 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The site's critics' consensus reads: "Restrained but disturbing, A Tale of Two Sisters is a creepily effective, if at times confusing, horror movie."[10] Meanwhile, Metacritic scored the film 65 out of 100, meaning "generally favorable reviews" from 19 critics.[11]
Kevin Thomas of Los Angeles Times described A Tale of Two Sisters as "a triumph of stylish, darkly absurdist horror that even manages to strike a chord of Shakespearean tragedy – and evokes a sense of wonder anew at all the terrible things people do to themselves and each other."[12]
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- Nomination – Best Film
2003 Screamfest Horror Film Festival
- Best Picture
- Best Actress – Im Soo-jung
2003 Busan Film Critics Awards
- Best New Actress – Im Soo-jung
- Best Cinematography – Lee Mo-gae
- Special Jury Prize – Kim Jee-woon
- Best New Actress – Im Soo-jung
- Nomination – Best New Actress – Moon Geun-young
2003 Korean Film Awards
- Best New Actress – Im Soo-jung
- Best Art Direction – Park Hee-jeong
- Best Sound – Choi Tae-young
- Best Actress – Yum Jung-ah
- Best New Actress – Im Soo-jung
2004 Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival
- Silver Raven – Yum Jung-ah
2004 Fantasia Festival
- Most Popular Film
2004 Fantasporto Film Festival
- International Fantasy Film Best Actress – Im Soo-jung
- International Fantasy Film Best Director – Kim Jee-woon
- International Fantasy Film Best Film
- Orient Express Section Special Jury Award
- Grand Prize
- Prix 13ème Rue
- Youth Jury Grand Prize
- Nomination – Best Actress – Yum Jung-ah
- Nomination – Best New Actress – Im Soo-jung
- Nomination – Best Cinematography – Lee Mo-gae
- Nomination – Best Art Direction – Cho Geun-hyun
- Nomination – Best Lighting – Oh Seung-chul
- Nomination – Best Costume Design – Ok Su-gyeong
- Nomination – Best Music – Lee Byung-woo
- Nomination – Best Sound – Kim Kyung-taek, Choi Tae-young
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DreamWorks announced the two lead actresses on 28 June, with Emily Browning as Anna Ivers (Su-mi) and Arielle Kebbel as Alex Ivers (Su-yeon). Although originally titled A Tale of Two Sisters like the original film, it was later renamed as The Uninvited.[citation needed]
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