A Tale Of Two Sisters distracts viewers with one obvious twist - only to blindside them with an even more shocking reveal. South Korea has been extremely reliable when it comes to making quality horror movies and thrillers. The country has produced some of the most frightening movies of the last two decades, including The Wailing, The Host, and 2016 blockbuster Train To Busan.
Hollywood has also produced some high-profile remakes of South Korean movies, such as Spike Lee’s Oldboy or Mirrors starring Kiefer Sutherland, which was based off the 2003’s Into The Mirror. There are also American versions planned for Train To Busan and the acclaimed thriller I Saw The Devil. A Tale Of Two Sisters is a psychological horror tale from director Kim Jee-woon, where two sisters return home from their stay in a mental institution, where they clash with their wicked stepmother and come to realize the spirit of their late mother might be haunting the house.
A Tale Of Two Sisters is told from the perspective of Su-mi, who looks after her timid younger sibling Su-yeon. The pair hate their cold stepmother Eun-joo, who was once the nurse for their late mother. Su-mi and Eun-joo both see visions of a ghost in the house, and Su-mi suspects her stepmother of abusing her sister. Horror fans might be able to spot the Sixth Sense-style reveal that Su-yeon isn’t really there since she’s never really seen interacting with anyone but her sister. That’s only part of the big reveal because it turns out Su-mi is suffering from dissociative identity disorder and has acted as both Su-yeon and her stepmother for most of the movie.
A Tale Of Two Sisters eventually flashes back to the day Su-yeon died, as she discovered her mother’s dead body hanging in a wardrobe. Su-yeon frantically tried to free her, only to cause the wardrobe to crash down and crush her. Her stepmother Eun-joo discovers her but hesitates to help. She appears to have a change of heart, but argues with an angry Su-mi - who is unaware of Su-yeon’s accident - and ultimately decides to let her die. This is what led to Su-mi being institutionalized, and why her father seemed so ill at ease in the earlier parts of the movie - Su-mi was acting as both her stepmother and sister in front of him.
The real Eun-joo appears towards the end of A Tale Of Two Sisters, and while she’s still cold, she’s not the evil archetype Su-mi imagined her to be. The movie ends with Su-mi sent back to the institute but having made some peace with her sister’s demise. The ending also reveals a ghost has been haunting the house - Su-yeon. She traps her stepmother in a room and proceeds to kill her offscreen. A Tale Of Two Sisters is both an emotional family drama and creepy horror movie. The acting and pacing are superb, and it hides one reveal almost in plain sight to wrongfoot viewers with the real twist. The movie also received a remake with 2009’s The Uninvited starring Elizabeth Banks (Charlie’s Angels), but sadly it failed to capture the mood of its predecessor.
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