Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Three Major Predecessors
- 3 The Fallow Years: An Assortment of Ghosts
- Seminal Films
- 4 Ghosts in the City
- 5 Ghosts in the Machine
- 6 Schoolgirl Angst
- 7 Childhood Abuse
- Evolution of the cycle
- 8 Generic Developments 1: Messages from the Dead
- 9 Spain and History 1: Politics and War
- 10 Hollywood Reinflections
- 11 Asian Variations
- 12 Generic Developments 2: Ghosts in the Woman's Film
- 13 Ghosts and Institutions 1: South Korea
- 14 Ghosts and Institutions 2: The West
- 15 National Variations
- 16 Anatomy of the Ghost Melodrama
- 17 Spain and History 2: The Franco Legacy and the Catholic Church
- 18 The Return of the British Ghost Film
- 19 Recent US developments and conclusion
- Filmography
- Illustrations
- Bibliography
- Index
- Film Culture in Transition
11 - Asian Variations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Three Major Predecessors
- 3 The Fallow Years: An Assortment of Ghosts
- Seminal Films
- 4 Ghosts in the City
- 5 Ghosts in the Machine
- 6 Schoolgirl Angst
- 7 Childhood Abuse
- Evolution of the cycle
- 8 Generic Developments 1: Messages from the Dead
- 9 Spain and History 1: Politics and War
- 10 Hollywood Reinflections
- 11 Asian Variations
- 12 Generic Developments 2: Ghosts in the Woman's Film
- 13 Ghosts and Institutions 1: South Korea
- 14 Ghosts and Institutions 2: The West
- 15 National Variations
- 16 Anatomy of the Ghost Melodrama
- 17 Spain and History 2: The Franco Legacy and the Catholic Church
- 18 The Return of the British Ghost Film
- 19 Recent US developments and conclusion
- Filmography
- Illustrations
- Bibliography
- Index
- Film Culture in Transition
Summary
Pon/Phone (Ahn Byung-ki, South Korea, 2002)
Phone is one of the most intriguing, but also one of the most frustrating, of the spin-offs from the Ringu films. It is self-consciously derivative: again an aggrieved female ghost is using modern technology (here the cell phone) to communicate her rage; again this kills people; and again the figure investigating the deaths is a female journalist, Ji-won (Ha Ji-won). At the same time, ghost motifs and references to other ghost films are effectively blended in, and the film also incorporates a striking family melodrama. There are, however, problems. The most serious is that the narrative (script by Ahn and Lee Yoo-jin) is very awkwardly structured, with long explanatory flashbacks, ‘which tend to unroll as if the heroine were learning the information but then take over the main narrative thread’ (Newman 2004: 77). When the film begins, there is already a backstory which includes horror, melodrama and ghost elements, much of which Ji-won only gradually uncovers. I will unravel these at the outset.
The past melodrama has two threads. First, when her close friend Hojeong (Kim You-mi), an artist, learnt she was infertile, Ji-won provided her with eggs, and the daughter born as a result of this, Yeong-ju (Eun Seo-woo) is now about five. But there are suppressed tensions: on the one hand, Ho-jeong is grateful to Ji-won; on the other, Ji-won spends a lot of time with Yeong-ju. Although Yeong-ju calls Ji-won ‘aunt’, in a late scene, Ho-jeong reveals her fears: ‘Do you know how jealous I get when you look into Yeong-ju's eyes? Maybe she would see you as her mother’.
Second, Ho-jeong's husband, Chang-hoon (Choi Woo-jae), a company CEO, has had an affair with schoolgirl Jin-hee (Choi Ji-yeon), who fell in love with him. The eponymous cell phone was given to Chang-hoon by Jin-hee for their private communications. But the phone also revealed the affair: when Chang-hoon began ignoring Jin-hee's calls, a suspicious Hojeong found the phone with Jin-hee's string of messages, and these revealed she was pregnant. Ho-jeong confronted Jin-hee, a violent fight ensued, and – partly in self-defence – she killed Jin-hee. She then concealed her body – Jin-hee's hand still clutching her own cell phone – behind a wall in a house in Bangbae that Chang-hoon had bought for the family in the future.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Modern Ghost Melodramas'What Lies Beneath', pp. 221 - 246Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2017