A Tale of Two Sisters (장화, 홍련, Janghwa, Hongryeon literally 'Rose Flower, Red Lotus') is a 2003 South Korean psychological horror film by Kim Ji-woon. It is both the highest-grossing Korean horror film and the first to be screened in American theatres.
Based on the Korean folk tale Jangha and Hongryun, Kim Ji-woon’s brilliant gothic horror story "A Tale of Two Sisters " revolves around two sisters, Soo-mi (played by Lim Su-jeong), and Soo-yeon (played by Mun Geon-yeong), who are part of a dysfunctional family that live together in a creepy Victorian-style mansion. Feeling alienated from the world, they cling to each other for survival with the older one, Soo-mi, obsessively protecting the younger against danger.
While we may recognize staples such as haunted houses with apparitional sightings, doors that open and close on their own, a cruel and overbearing stepmother, and other events of high strangeness, “A Tale of Two Sisters” superbly explores deeper psychological meanings including the inability to let go of inner demons and the misplaced desire for revenge. There is a timeline but it is left for the viewer to unravel and the story cannot be summarized, only suggested and the film keeps us wondering whether what is happening on screen is objective or subjective.
Shot in gorgeous low-light cinematography, “A Tale of Two Sisters” has a unique elegance and other worldly beauty that transcends all the horrors. It is haunting in more than one sense of the word and its images may stare back at you when you least expect or want them to.
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