Two films can serve to highlight typical features of the ghost melodramas: the South Korean RYEONG (2004) in terms of themes and motifs; the Japanese SAKEBI (2006) in terms of narrative structure. By the time these films were made, the cycle was well established, and there was a history of generic features on which to draw. The films also represent contrasting types of ghost movie: RYEONG has a female protagonist and is largely confined to the world of education; SAKEBI has a male protagonist who is a police detective. Between them, the two films cover a representative range of generic elements, elements which are typically inflected by the melodramatic mode.

Themes and Motifs

Ryeong/The Ghost/Dead Friend (Kim Tae-kyoung, South Korea, 2004)

Written as well as directed by Kim Tae-kyoung, RYEONG centres on a group of girls and the shifting dynamic of their relationships. It begins with the girls at university, but flashbacks return to their high-school days. Unlike in the YEOGO GOEDAM films, however, we also see something of their lives outside education, particularly for the heroine Min Ji-won (Kim Ha-neul), who lives with her widowed mother Mrs Min (Kim Hae-suk).

Primary and past traumatic events. RYEONG is a relatively unusual example of a ghost melodrama where the protagonist's own past traumatic event was also the primary traumatic event; that is, Ji-won was a horrified witness to the death that produced the film's ghost. Although, as usual, the incident is only revealed in flashbacks late in the film, it is the core of the narrative: the incident from which events in the present all stem.

The incident occurred a year ago. Ji-won and the three other girls in her clique went for a day in the country, taking with them Su-in (Nam Sang-mi), an outsider whom they could tease and exploit. At a pool in some woods, Ji-won casually pushed Su-in into the water; the other girls then did the same to Ji-won. But, whereas Su-in could swim, Ji-won could not, and she started to sink. Su-in went to her rescue, but as she pushed Ji-won back to the surface, her foot became stuck in some underwater rocks.