LOGIN
JOIN
1997(1st) ~ 2024(28th)
Howling Decade of Whispering Corriders
CHOI Equan
Korea2005 104 min 35mm C
Now with the box-office results confirmed for the fifth sequel of the horror series Whispering Corridors, the fourth installment Voice remains the worst, performance-wise — the original Whispering Corridors drew 2.5 million viewers whereas Wishing Stairs (III) drew 1.8 million viewers, Memento Mori (II) 0.4 million, and Voice (IV) 0.2 million. But the second installment strikes us as a fresh approach to the subject, just like the second one, despite its poor box-office records. First of all, the director made a bold decision to place a ghost as the central figure of the story, who wanders around the school where she was killed, without knowing why her life was taken away from her. Like her friends, she’s just another student who, dead or live, does not seem to escape the system. In addition, the ghost exists only as an aural entity to her best friend as well as to another student who is capable of hearing the dead. The assumptions are connected to a rather philosophical pre-condition that ghosts remember only what they want to remember. Indeed, it is quite interesting how the director CHOI Equan has handled sounds in Voice, who, with many previous experimental pieces as well as the country’s first-ever rotoscoping animation film Life is Cool (2007), tries a different approach to this particular sequel. A classroom where sound waves are transferred, various noises floating around the campus, fading voices, and lights overlapping with them . . . Seeing Voice for the second time after a few years is surprisingly impressive, with many elements to review and remember. (JU Seong Cheol)
After graduating Seoul National University with a major of linguistics, CHOI finished film-making course at the Korean Academy of Film Arts and obtained MFA in film arts at San Francisco Art Institute. He was the assistant director of Whispering Corridors 1 and is highly recognized as a director possessing both theoretical knowledge and practical field experiences.