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Korean Fantastic: Features

Epitaph

JUNG Brothers

Korea2007 98min

Synopsis

In 1942, As soon as couple, who are doctors, get a job a hospital, there are serial murders in Gyeongseong. The husband is ominous when his wife performs an autopsy on the victim. The vortex of tragedy has been pressing them more and more.

Program Note

Epitaph (2007) is a film that shows a weird story that happened in Ahn Seng (Safe Life) Hospital during the Japanese colonial era. The movie is made up of tragic episodes under the Japanese occupation and is also based on the theme of love and loss. It creates the sympathy of a melodrama within the framework of a horror genre, and it depicts the tragic fate of a man between reality and illusion. Epitaph covers the era of the Japanese imperialism to the era of Yushin Reform in Korea and it seeks to find out the historical sense of the past. The promise and slogan of the colonial rule under the name ‘Korea and Japan are One’ policy was an illusion that could not be realized, and the essence of modernization of the Japanese colonial regime was a history of pain and sorrow. And the movie reveals in a metaphorical and symbolic way that the despair and grief of the period continued without ending after liberation. (The Japanese name of former president Park Chung-hee, Takagi Masao, was changed to Gomokjungnam, which is similar in accent when spoken in Japanese). In fact, the movie asks the audience whether the entire modern and contemporary history of Korea was a ‘Epitaph’. Epitaph remains a monumental masterpiece that will be remembered in the history of Korean horror films by combining a historical play and melodrama, and infusing literary depth in to a horror film. (CHO Jae-hwi)

Diretor

JUNG Brothers

Director Jung Sik graduated from the film department, Seoul Institute of Fine Arts. He then debuted by directing the film Epitaph , followed by The Tooth and the Nail (2017). He also held a career as a judge of the Korean short films at the 2009 Jeonju Film Festival. Director Jung Sik and Bum-Shik is the co-director for Epitaph.