HELLO GHOST (2010)
When I started planning this piece, I thought, “Cool! It’s right after Halloween. There are so many great horror/horror-adjacent films in classic Korean cinema! I’ll write about one of those!” As a film academic living in South Korea, that’s kinda where my emphasis lies. While I primarily examine classic Korean cinema between 1960-1990, focusing on representations of women, disability and sexuality, genre films will always have my heart.
But on Saturday night, October 29th, the Itaewon disaster happened and honestly? I can barely function as the writer I know myself to be, so I certainly can not bring myself to write about any further horrors. A little background for those who don’t follow the international news: a very popular area in Seoul was having Halloween festivities. Due to poor crowd management and understaffing by authorities, a large group of people going down one of the small alleys turned into a stampede situation, people were crushed, many were injured and even more died. The death toll is at 156. It was completely preventable.
Living in Seoul right now is rough. The entire city is existing in a state of shock, anger, mourning and collective sorrow. Itaewon has been important for all of us at some point somehow. It’s a central area for many different communities and we are all feeling some way about this. If my boyfriend hadn’t moved back to the US, I would have been there with him. I have spent a lot of quality time in Itaewon. It means a great deal to me on a lot of levels. Everyone I know is connected to this and it’s not going away. So horror was not on the writing “to do” list this time around.
Instead, I selected a film that is both very Korean and quite universal. HELLO GHOST (Kim Young-tak, 2010) won me over with its extremely dark humor and unusual premise and kept me there with the occasionally meditative tone that mixed extremely well with what I can only describe as a quasi-road-trip-style narrative. Please make sure you have some tissues close by, because this film is also heart-shattering AF with a nice little HFS WTF OMG ending. And I don’t do spoilers so that’s all I’ll say about that.
This is a rare little film that I hadn’t seen until my best friend Rebecca turned me on to it. Made in 2010, it has (if you know Korean films/dramas of the time) a nicely stacked cast, and feels like a fun mix between Hirokazu Kore-eda’s SHOPLIFTERS (2018) and Tim Burton’s BEETLEJUICE (1988) (minus the wild SFX). This film doesn’t have a big budget but I’m not mad at it. It doesn’t need it. It has outstanding performances and a great story.
The plot is pretty basic- Sangman (Cha Tae-hyun) wants to die. Like REALLY wants to die. He keeps trying to commit suicide but failing. Finally, he is hospitalized for his latest attempt and…four ghosts appear: a little boy, a smoking man, a crying woman, and an older man whose US archetype would be simply “Dirty Old Man.” In Korea, the character has slightly more nuance. They are ajeossi. Technically, that word simply means “mister” but it also has come to stand for the type of older man represented in HELLO GHOST and can mostly be seen in the company of other men sitting outside restaurants together for hours, smoking, drinking, and just generally being ajeossi. I guess it’s a little hard to explain. But the representation in HELLO GHOST is quite accurate!
At any rate, be it ajeossi or the crying lady, not a single ghost will leave him alone until he grants them their wishes. But in order for him to grant their wishes? He has to lend them his body. They get to temporarily take over his body to make the wishes come true. This is where it gets weird for poor Sangman but funnier for the audience. I don’t want to ruin too much but there are life observations, a love story and more. And for the foodies? There is stuff for you too!
Cha Tae-hyun plays the (literally) haunted Sangman terrifically, physically reproducing each one of his ghosts with great skill. Imitating another person, from facial expressions and mannerisms, all the way to small hand movements is not an easy task! Other films have done it, but the one that kept coming to my mind was Vince Vaughn’s performance in Christopher Landon’s FREAKY (2020). Vaughn’s performance of Kathryn Newton’s character is likely one of my favorites of the last 10 years so finding another film where those kinds of talents had to be called upon was a joy and a surprise. Cha’s embodiments of the four ghosts were all great, but it was the Old Man/Ajeossi that got my heart. I was impressed by Cha’s physical comedy ability and I was laughing hard at the accurate parodies and loving portrayals of figures I see so often around my adopted city, Seoul.
There were various things about this film that made me glad I watched it when I did. It’s a very Korean film and, as difficult as it is to live here sometimes, I love it and this film reminded me of that. It opens up on a celebration of Children’s Day, a day that Korea has dedicated to celebrating children. Many countries have it, but none seem to take it as seriously as Korea. Of course, it’s part of the narrative but…I still enjoy this inclusion. And the discourse on food! Food is incredibly important here, and remains one of my favorite parts of my day-to-day life. Finding small restaurants that are clearly not chains, having a nice, home cooked meal (even if I am not at home)? That’s Korea to me. The conversations in HELLO GHOST about food here mirror this very well. Oh, and just in case you don’t know what kimbap is—it looks like a sushi roll, and, much like Italian families and pasta sauces, a lot of families have different ways of making them.
HELLO GHOST is one of the more refreshing films I’ve seen in years. Titles around this time in Korean filmmaking do seem to have a certain flavor which I find attractive: a dark comedic edge, low budget feel, genuine observations on real topics. This is definitely one of them. While I tend to shy away from comedies or light works in modern Korean cinema (I just like dark films, what can I say?), this blew my mind. Especially the ending.
Many people know the lead of this film, Cha Tae-hyun, from his hit MY SASSY GIRL (Kwak Jae-yong, 2001) one of the highest grossing movies in Korea at the time. It is still considered a major work in the Hallyu canon. For reference, the Hallyu was the time in the ‘90s/early ‘00s when South Korean media culture exploded onto the global scene. While many may only now be discovering what South Korean media culture has to offer, this previous global explosion of K-pop, K-drama, and K-film directly led to the current popularity of filmmakers like Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon Ho, and Kim Jee-woon.
There is a big difference between the movies made in the classic era and the modern era of filmmaking in Korean, but there are strong arguments to love both. One of my favorite aspects of modern Korean filmmaking is what I call the “pull the rug out from under your feet” moment. Generally designed to come when the movie is drawing to a close, you know what’s going on, and…you are dead certain you know how it is gonna end. Like, you are hand on a stack of bibles, swear in court-style sure of how it will end. And then…OMGWTFBBQ EXCUSE ME MOVIE? You’re doing what????
The first time I experienced that was with Park Chan-wook’s OLDBOY (2003) in the mid-‘00s and I’ve never looked back. That “pull the rug” ending? Yeah, that’s here in HELLO GHOST. And that’s all I will say. You’ll have to watch it yourself for the experience.
HELLO GHOST is currently streaming in the United States on Tubi.
