Reviews

Intriguing, how so many reviewers hated the scene included in the credits, to the point where they advise you not to watch it.

I was curious, I got it.

Is it because it left them in a state of denial, robbed of their hopes for a happy ending in the very last seconds ? Most probably.

A CLEVER TRICK FROM THE DIRECTOR

The last scene is the ugly true ending. Not the fictitious alternate one we hoped for out of empathy for the "good" girl, shown first. The "evil" girl wins, and as humans we are conditioned not to like that. Especially in the West.

But so be it. In corean culture (see below for details) only shamans have the power to defeat a demon. The "good" girl plays with fire despite being warned by the shaman, and looses.

Such a great unhappy ending, a rarity in movies, suits the script perfectly. Dark, murderous and hopeless. I believe it actually makes all the difference and saves the movie, which would otherwise end on a cheesy, happy note in typical Hollywood fashion.

Of course the whole movie falls apart when you start looking for logical inconsistencies. Who cares ? There are always plenty in a script based on some time quirks.

AS FAR AS THE LAST SCENE IS CONCERNED, EVERYTHING FITS

It starts from the point when the "good" girl is trapped by the "evil" girl in the present. All she has to do is to check the police report the "good" girl robbed at the police station. And act accordingly to change the past, and therefore the present, warning herself. Logical : had she been dead, she would not have been able to meet the "good" girl in the present.

DEMONS AND SHAMANISM IN COREAN CULTURE

We have to take the corean culture into account. Shamanism has been at the heart of corean culture since prehistoric times. It is not a minor detail in the movie.

When the movie starts we soon learn that the mother-in-law of the "evil" girl is a shaman (Mudang) who knows her daughter-in-law is possessed by a demon that has to be killed to prevent deaths. She tries everything to save her, but it does not work, so she reluctantly decides to kill her. It fails and we know why.

In the end we can assume she was right.

In the traditional corean culture, shamans are supposed to terminate a demon when they spot one. It is their duty.

Around 1890, protestant missionnaries started a ruthless repression that lasted for a century. In the 70s and 80s the repression reached new heights, in South-Corea, notably during the autoritarian rule of Park Chung-hee, a devout Boudhist, with full backing from the protestant churches and fundamental evangelists. Thousands of shamans were jailed, tortured and killed.

Regardless, shamanism has remained present in popular culture and its practice is rising again. Nowadays, around 20% of the South Corean population regularly contract shamans for advice and cleansing, up from 5% in the seventies. Shamanism is now recognized as the natural corean religion.

Who else but a demon would be able to make a phone call in the future to save itself ?

There is another clear reference to shamanism and demons in the movie, through the "evil" girl's favorite pop star, Seo Taiji. He has been accused of being a shaman who had sealed a deal with the devil, a rumour which turned into a nationwide scandal in the '90s. In Corea such an accusation was then considered a very serious matter by a large majority.

Yes the movie is 100% coherent, as far as corean culture is concerned. Only a shaman is able to terminate a demon. An innocent girl has no such power.

In this movie, evil wins. Because we lost our shamans. It is a warning but there is hope, eventually, as they are on the rise again. (Not me saying this, but that's the spirit...) Enjoy.

That's what this film is all about. Christianization is on its way and the nordic religion is in peril. It needs to be revived : One-eye's mission.

It is hard to understand the movie without some knowledge of nordic religion. Nobody quite gets it, the professional critics seem to be lost.

Some clues :

One-Eye is Odin, or his human avatar. Odin had one eye. He was, among other virtues from his curriculum, the god of slaves and gladiators (slaves, usually). One-eye is a slave, kept as a gladiator. He's been there for years, waiting, observing. He is Odin in disguise, guarantor of nordic traditions. The cunning warrior who always wins, using any situation to his advantage (here, using the rope tied to his neck).

He chooses to free himself after hearing two chiefs talking about the christians and their one god, while negotiating his sale : his owner at first hesitates "we need him", then agrees to sell One-eye for money that will help him deal with the christians. Obviously a big no-no for Odin : the many gods must prevail. Time for action ! Once free, One-eye ties an enemy against a rock and eviscerates him alive : a sacrifice straight from the cult of Odin.

One-eye has a bloody vision of a trip on a boat, then finds christians who just finished slaughtering some pagans and are planning to go to Jerusalem. He embarks on their boat and leads them to hell instead. The mist they encounter at sea is the mist separating the land of humans - the Midgardr - from the Niflheimer - the world of obscurity - were Odin sent Hel, the godess in charge of, you guessed it, Hell.

The vision of a red sea represents the blood of Ymir, whom Odin and his brothers killed to create earth from his body parts - and the oceans from his blood.

One of the christians wants to kill the kid (not One Eye, important detail) fearing he is the one sending them to hell. He is instantly killed by One-eye. Indeed, the kid has become One-eye's messenger, his messiah - he who hears and spreads the words of the deity. Choosen by Odin, in other words.

On what they believe to be unknown land, the christians loose their minds, those who reject their faith are swiftly killed by One-eye : they have earned their passage to Valhalla. The dead christians will instead remain in Niflheimer. One-eye's answer to one of the survivors is clear : they will die.

The indians are indeed a reference to the discovery of North America by the Norsemen. Here, however, they represent the dead warriors from Valhalla, the einherjar. One-eye has accomplished his mission, he drops his weapons and walks towards the indians - no need for a fight, as the einerjar are in essence already dead. His death is shown as a ritual, a sacrifice : violent death is needed to reach Valhalla - his return ticket, sort of.

There are actually two rituals during the sacrifice scene : we simultaneously see One-eye immersing himself in water, Odin's quintessential element : the water of knowledge (for which he gave one of his eyes).

The kid is spared for a good reason, he now has a mission to accomplish : to cross the ocean again and revive the nordic religion in the land of humans. At the end One-eye's face appears in the mist : Odin is watching.

As a matter of fact the movie was entirely shot in Scotland, where the Gaels-Galls tribes, descending from the Norsemen, perpetuated the cult of Odin and did not convert to christianism until the 13th century (all of Scandinavia had already been converted at the end of the 10th century).

We can assume the story of this movie is dated around the end of the 12th century, in Scotland. when nordic traditions in those tribes were starting to falter. A tartan is seen on the kid's shoulders, there were no tartans in Scandinavia (but they did provide the Scotts with the word kilt, which means wrap). The movie is actually very accurate as far as details are concerned.

One-eye/Odin's mission ultimately failed. Although one of his sons, Thor, is making a killing at the box office this very century :-)

Great movie