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The Priests was released on Nov. 5th. As of now, it has attracted more than 3.1 million viewers in just 10 days since the release, anticipating a huge success that may go as far as 10 million like Veteran and Assassination. The biggest selling factor would be the so-called "GANG Dong-won effect." Or maybe the synergy created by GANG and KIM Yun-seok’s great team play. As The Priests is doing so well, the theme of this film is also gaining attention, since this film belongs to occult genre which is still rather new in Korea.

 

Metaphorically speaking, Korean horror cinema is mean to outsiders. It is possessed by ghosts with grudge, based on traditional ghost stories and shamanism. Or, most of those films had female ghosts in white dress as lead characters. To be sure, new types of horror films have often been attempted, but occult films fully based on western culture have been very rare, and such films' box office success was even rarer. Therefore it would be a meaningful approach to have a look at the western culture trend in Korean horror cinema now that The Priests, a cross bred monster, is out there.

 

 

 

To be sure, The Priests has benchmarked Exorcist, Hollywood's classic occult franchise. It is apparent in the story, to begin with. A high school girl (PARK So-dam) shows a peculiar symptom since she has been hit and run in a car accident. Father KIM (KIM Yun-seok), a long time acquaintance of hers, discovers right away that she is possessed and prepares exorcism. However, the religious body that he belongs to does not quite approve exorcism, believing it is rather heresy. Father KIM does it anyway, and invites a smart, versatile seminary student, assistant deacon CHOI (GANG Dong-won) to help him with the exorcism. Now comes the confrontation with the evil spirit.

 

In such narrative, there are many elements based on Western Catholicism: dichotomy of good and evil; argument between legitimate religious body and heresy; rules for Holy Spirit to defeat the evil spirit; a lonely Father who is turned against by the religious body but practically is the hero and the savior; and a smart young assistant deacon who helps him. These are all in the scope of the Western Catholic cultural imagination. They have also often been thematic materials in occult films, and found in famous novels including The Name of the Rose and The Da vinci Code.

 

The Priests is an expanded version of JANG Jae-hyun, the director’s own short 12th Assistant Deacon. In other words, The Priests is a reinterpretation of thematic materials in western horror films by a young Korean director who grew up watching them.  

 

The appearance of the western evil spirit, or western exorcism in Korean cinema was briefly popular in the 1990s. A variety of fantasy novels enjoyed popularity in the newly introduced internet space, and some of them were adapted into films. A good example would be The Soul Guardians (1998) featuring Korea's famous actor AHN Sung-ki. However, the trend did not last long. Instead, we can pick an artist who has actively transformed some fascinating elements in the western culture into a Korean style. He is none other than PARK Chan-wook. 

 

 

 

It was PARK’s long awaited dream to make a vampire film. Vampire is a traditionally western creature that is not easily found in Asia. Korea does not have a vampire legend per se, which means this material for horror films has been transplanted from the West.

 

PARK has long been fascinated by this theme and he finally made Thirst (2009) featuring SONG Kang-ho. Here, a Catholic father accidentally becomes a vampire, and the woman he loves also turns into one. It is very interesting that a Catholic father becomes a vampire himself, rather than defeating them. This film is also famous for taking the motif from Thérès Raquin, a novel by Émile Zola. As a result, Thirst has become a unique, Korean style vampire flick with the western vampire and Zola’s novel blended in.

 

To be sure, PARK is not the only Korean film maker fascinated by western culture. Other young Korean directors also often show such tendency. A good example would be Evil Spirit :Viy (2010) by PARK Jin-seong, which has been unfortunately undervalued.

 

PARK's motif was Russia's witch legend. The central motif of this film is from Nikolai Gogoll's short story The Viy. The main story of the film is the relationship between a seminary student and a witch. Witches are among common characters in the western culture and literature, but not at all common in that of Korea. They are quite different from the female ghosts with grudge still wandering in the afterlife, that Korean people are familiar with. Witches are closer to natural phenomena. Therefore the attempt of Evil Spirit :Viy to feature a witch instead of a traditional female ghost was very original.

 

It is not only the classic novels by eminent authors that has provided sources for Korean horror cinema. Famous fairy tales from the West have also inspired Korean horror films. YIM Pil-sung's Hansel and Gretel (2007), based on Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale by the same title, would be a good example. However it was not so successful either in terms of ticket sales or criticism. Rather, The Piper (2015) would be a more meaningful film.

 

It was a Korean rendition of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”, a German fairy tale. It takes place during the Korean War. A father and son come to a village that is mysteriously isolated. The leader of the village promises the man that he'll pay him a big sum of money if he chases away the mice that have put the village in danger. The man successfully chases the mice away by playing the pipe, but instead of rewarding him, the leader of the village turns against him, during which his son dies. The man decides to exact revenge on the leader and the whole village. Here, a German fairy tale has been blended into one of the saddest moments of modern Korean history.

 

 

Looking back on the history of classic Korean cinema, an interesting factor is noticed: that movies with western-inspired creatures such as vampires and artificial monsters appear were famous in the 1960s and 1970s. Major examples would be A Bloodthirsty Killer (1965) and A horrible double-faced man (1975) directed by LEE Yong-min, a horror film specialist. Film scholars have found that the B-list Hollywood horror movies released in mass in Korea in mid-to-late 1950s have influenced such trend in Korean horror cinema. Of course such trend did not continue for a long time.

 

However, as surveyed earlier, the western culture has inspired Korean cinema with new ideas, ranging from vampire, witch and horrific fairy tales. At last, The Priests is now passionately received by general audience. Like it or not, the West, or the western culture, which can be interpreted as other's sign, will often step in Korean cinema in the future, just like Asian cultural signs are accepted in the western culture as fascinating orientalism.

 

In this regard, even zombi films which have rarely been attempted in Korea, and/or failed even if attempted (as seen in Dark Forest, 2006), but have consistently been popular in the West, may become successful in Korea someday.