SPELLBOUND

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SPELLBOUND

Jan 07, 2019

Writer by Pierce Conran
View1342

2011｜114 MIN｜Horror, Romance, Comedy

DIRECTOR HWANG In-ho

CAST SON Ye-jin, LEE Min-ki, PARK Chul-min

RELEASE DATE December 1, 2011

CONTACT CJ Entertainment

Tel : +82 2 371 5500

Fax : +82 2 371 6340

Email : filmsales@cj.net

Between the thriller White Night (2009) and the disaster drama The Tower (2012), Korean star SON Ye-jin took a rare trip into comedy with the hit horror-comedy Spellbound (2011). Co-starring with LEE Min-ki, whose own star was quickly rising at the time, the film was a strong end-of-year hit for CJ Entertainment, drawing over 2.7 million admissions.

Street magician Jo-gu (LEE Min-ki) is looking for a way to hit the big time and his chance finally comes when he meets Yu-ri (SON Ye-jin), a woman with a strange expression that becomes the inspiration for his megahit show. After a year of working together, Jo-gu still hasn’t convinced Yu-ri to join the team for afterwork drinks but when she finally acquiesces he begins to learn about Yu-ri’s unusual abilities, and that anyone who gets too close to her runs the risk of becoming acquainted with the undead.

Spellbound, the directorial debut of HWANG In-ho, followed in the footsteps of the success of Hello Ghost, a horror-comedy hybrid featuring CHA Tae-hyun as a friendly medium helping ghosts resolve their grudges which welcomed 3 million admissions at the end of 2010. When horror films became popular around the turn of the millennium in Korea, the horror-comedy hybrid wasn’t far behind, with films like Ghost House (2004) and To Catch A Virgin Ghost (2004), which was written by HWANG In-ho and incidentally provided CJ Entertainment with the music for its current logo bumper, proving early successes for the sub-genre.

Beyond the appealing chemistry between A Moment To Remember (2004) star SON and Quick (2011) lead LEE, Spellbound succeeded through its charm, stylish and comfortable production values and the clever twists its employed with its genre codes. In an early scene, Jo-gu mistakes a ghost for a young boy wanting to play hide-and-seek and turns the tables on him by frightening it when it creeps out of a cupboard.

This is far from the only instance of its tongue-in-cheek approach to the genre. In another scene, Yu-ri is on the phone with her friend, talking about whether or not there’s something going on with her and Jo-gu. The friend calls up another friend, a TV drama writer, and during their three-way conference call she explains what usually happens in a romantic comedy. She even starts to discuss horror codes, referencing The Texas Chain Massacre and the ‘Final Girl’ trope.

With its star power and winning charm, it was no surprise that Spellbound did as well as it did, but strangely few people have taken a stab at the genre since. Director HWANG would go on to team up with LEE again for the serial killer horror-thriller Monster in 2014. For attentive Korean film fans, keep your eyes peeled for an early small role from UM Tae-goo, the memorable antagonist of The Age of Shadows (2016).

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