Time Writer | Xiao Gen looks for more possibilities in life in the movie.
"Broken Tomb" can finally be watched, which should be regarded as a grand event in the fan circle in the near future.
As a phenomenal horror film, it will naturally attract some doubts.
For example, how can the number of moviegoers exceed 10 million? Is it really that high?
You might as well walk into this hit with these questions.
"Broken Tomb"
In the previous preview draft "South Korea has another hit horror movie, popular all over Asia", Shi Jun once wrote that popular movies often have the following elements: fascinating stories, rich and diverse genre elements, and emotions or values that can resonate with Chinese people at the same frequency.
Judging from the finished film, "Broken Tomb" has obviously done it all.
Below, Shijun will briefly analyze it without spoilers.
Folk phobia
In order to write the script of "Broken Tomb", screenwriter and director Zhang Zaixian did very in-depth data research work, he worked with morticians, feng shui masters, and shamans for a year, and really participated in the complete funeral ceremony.
As a result, he has a very clear understanding of the traditions and customs of funerals.
And folklore naturally carries a sense of mystery and horror, which is also the first layer of horror in "Broken Tomb".
Jang Jae-hyun is very clever, and he pulls the audience into the situation he creates through some details.
For example, the wizard Hwarin (Kim Go-eun) and the novice wizard Bong-gil (Lee Ji-hui), who is in charge of reciting scriptures, are invited to see a baby boy from a wealthy family.
Bongji, who is on the side, is observing the surroundings, while Hanain is whistling, and at this time, the audience can faintly respond to the strange screams and the cry of the baby boy.
Immediately afterward, Bonggil recites the scriptures, and Hana-rim further examines the baby's condition and concludes that the baby's father and grandfather may have had a strange illness, which makes everyone look at each other in surprise.
The same is true for feng shui master Kim Sang-deok (played by Choi Min-sik) and mortuary Yong-geun (played by Yoo Hae-jin).
For example, before the coffin is broken, Kim Sang-deok will have the action of tasting the soil.
Later, Kim Sang-deok shared his feng shui knowledge with customers, and brought out the phenomenon of the Korean upper class regarding feng shui culture as a belief in the casual conversation.
Jang Jae-hyun continues to lay out similar details to make the audience enter and believe in the horror situation in front of them.
Seeing that the baby's strange illness comes from the curse of her ancestors, Hwarin asks Kim Sang-deok for help to check the ancestral tomb of a wealthy family.
There are foxes around this cemetery, and the cemetery and the fox are mutually explanatory (because the fox's personality of digging in the earth is in conflict with the role of the cemetery).
Kim Sang-deok tasted the soil, quickly vomited, and then observed the surrounding feng shui, and was shocked, this is the most terrible yin house and bad land he has seen in 40 years.
The monk's name for the cemetery is also very strange, "Kishunai", which is pronounced similarly to the Japanese word "fox".
When Kim Sang-deok gave up, Hua Lin used the strategy of substitution and coffin-breaking at the same time, as well as the method of agitation, which left the frightened Kim Sang-deok behind.
Immediately, "Broken Tomb" presented the dancing god and the substitution technique.
In the end, the people in charge of breaking the coffin used several measures in the decisive battle with the elves, such as writing the "Chajing Sutra" on their bodies and faces, as well as the concept of the five elements of mutual restraint.
In short, "Broken Tomb" is like this, constantly throwing out folk concepts and ritual scenes, so that the story is fascinating from beginning to end.
And judging the quality of horror films, there is a hard indicator, whether it is scary or not.
Spooky atmosphere
Judging from the final presentation, the horror scenes in "Broken Tomb" can be said to be very restrained, it does not pursue a straightforward and brutal startle, but is committed to presenting a mysterious and diffuse sense of horror.
This is the second layer of horror in this film.
For example, when the coffin is broken and the coffin is being moved, the helper sees a snake and wants to kill it out of fear, and there is a scene of "snake body and human face".
There is such an exciting picture, but the director did not give a long close-up, but gave a long shot.
Immediately, the weather changed, dark clouds were thick, and heavy rain was pouring down, and Zhang Zaixian used this bad omen to convey a sense of horror and gloom.
The film also took the opportunity to explain the folk custom of "no cremation on rainy days".
Later, the tomb robbers pried open the coffin, and the spirits of the ancestors snatched out the coffin and began to search for bloodlines, and this aggression also followed the logic of the old to the young.
The more exciting part is the passage where the ancestors attack the current head of the family, Park Ji-yong.
In this scene, Park Ji-yong answers a call from Kim Sang-deok, who heeds the warning and does not open the door, and leans closer to the window and opens the window as requested, while on the other side, the person who knocks on the door is also Kim Sang-deok.
Which is true and which is false?
Before the horror drama hit, the director played a suspenseful game, and he used such an atmosphere to make the audience feel scared, and at the same time explained the way the soul invaded.
In the formal scary scene, he used various perspectives and camera movements.
In particular, there is a scene in the film that pays homage to the horror classic "The Exorcist".
In "Broken Tomb", director Jang Jae-hyun also consciously used the method of cross-editing.
For example, when the coffin was broken, he edited the movements of shoveling soil, chopping pigs, dancing in the flower forest and beating drums in Bongji, and constantly accelerated the pace to create a terrifying atmosphere.
Another example is the final battle, where he edited the process of Kim Sang-deok, Hwarin, and Yeong-geun fighting against the villain, and the grotesque behavior of Bonggil's body after being possessed by a spirit.
There is more suspense here: how can we both defeat the villain and ensure that Bonggil survives.
If you analyze it in depth, in the horror section, "Broken Tomb" also has traces of imitation.
At the level of scene scheduling, director Zhang Zaixian is borrowing more from American horror films.
At the level of horror elements, such as the form of the ultimate villain, or the means of exorcism, it is more like Hong Kong zombie films, and the film even uses glutinous rice and white horse blood (zombie films mostly use black dog blood).
Fortunately, Jang Jae-hyun has mastered the norm of horror films, and can use various folk traditions and scary techniques for his own use, and what is even more surprising is that he can always reveal a social phenomenon or collective mood in South Korea through a horror story.
This brings us to the third layer of horror in "Broken Tomb", the idea.
Type advanced
Zhang Zaixing has a very strong desire to express himself.
He filmed "Black Priests" to present the embarrassing situation of religion in Korean society, and he filmed "Po Suahe" to focus on the phenomena and problems such as the rapid development of emerging religions in Korean society and the increasing number of illegal and criminal incidents such as fraud.
The idea of "Broken Tomb" is very reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki's new film "What kind of life do you want to live", because they both look at history and criticize the militaristic ideas that are about to move.
The script of this film is very ingenious, and it can be divided into two sections in terms of structure, and its dividing point is the design of "stacked coffins".
This not only enhances the suspense of the story again, but more importantly, the process of Feng Shui master Kim Sang-deok digging down to search for the coffin is the process of tracing history.
No more spoilers.
It can be said that the "iron needle" mentioned in the film comes from real history.
On August 22, 1910, Japan forced Korea to sign an unequal treaty, the Japan-Korea Merger Treaty, and began a 36-year colonial rule.
In order to completely defeat and enslave the Koreans spiritually, the Japanese planted countless iron stakes in the important geographical location of Korea to destroy its feng shui and cut off the lifeblood and national fortunes of Korea.
However, South Koreans also fought against the March 1 Movement, a massive national liberation movement that broke out on March 1, 1919, on the Japanese colonial Korean Peninsula.
The license plate number of Hualin alludes to this special day.
Similarly, the characters in the film are also adapted from historical celebrities, such as Hua Lin's prototype is the Korean anti-Japanese righteous Li Hualin, and Bonggil is her companion Yoon Bong-gil.
There is also a very good sense of design in the poster, and the blank area in the middle also corresponds to the topographical map of the Korean Peninsula, which fits the theme of the film.
Of course, "Broken Tomb" certainly has shortcomings.
If you are a veteran horror movie fan, you may be able to see that the film has many traces of reference, and its feng shui five elements may be superficial, or simply say that it is not weird and scary at all.
However, as a horror film, it is already very well done.
This film contributes three layers of horror from the story to the scene to the idea, layer by layer, step by step, its scene scheduling skills have been significantly improved, and it has a very thick sense of history.
In short, Zhang Zaixian is still improving.
This inevitably makes people expect that he will also contribute phenomenal works that focus on "religious terror".
-END-
【 Time Gathering Good Things 】
Anime Session
Genuine introduction of feelings collection
Park Chan-wook filmed a spy drama, and he didn't dare to think about how big the scale was
Director Za continues to smash sci-fi films, do you still believe him?