Dead Friend

Dead Friend

Dead Friend movie poster
Hangul 령
Revised Romanization Ryeong
McCune–Reischauer Ryŏng
Directed by Kim Tae-gyeong
Produced by Jeong Oh-young
Written by Kim Tae-gyeong
Starring Kim Ha-neul
Nam Sang-mi
Ryu Jin
Music by Choi Wan-hee
Hyeon Gyu-hwan
Cinematography Mun Yong-sik
Edited by Kim Yong-su
Distributed by Showbox
Release dates
  • June 18, 2004
Country South Korea
Language Korean

Dead Friend (Hangul: 령; RR: Ryeong; lit. "The Ghost") is a 2004 South Korean horror film. It is one of a number of South Korean horror films set in a girl's high school; the trend began with 1998's Whispering Corridors.[1]

Plot

Three friends from the same high school are conducting a séance with a bunshinsaba - a traditional South Korean ouija board. As the spirits are called by Eun-jung (Lee Yoon-ji), the planchette of the bunshinsaba starts jumping up and down: At the same time, her sister Eun-seo (Jeon Hye-bin), who was sleeping in the next room, wakes up screaming. When Eun-seo comes out, she has an argument with Eun-jung about conducting the séance rather than studying. After she leaves, Eun-jung says she wishes the ghost had taken her sister away, and then jumping to join her friends in bed jokingly tells them that if they don't send the ghost back it will kill them. They are all unaware of the planchette moving around the board on its own. Nor are they aware of Eun-seo being attacked by a ghostly water-based presence in the kitchen.

After a visit to her doctor, an amnesiac Min Ji-won (Kim Ha-neul) finds out that now her brain waves have stabilized, there's a good chance she may get her memory back. She's decided to leave college, leave her mother (Kim Hae-sook) and go overseas, to make a new start for herself.

Over time, however, fragments of her memory start to come back in her dreams - and they're almost always tainted by some frightening figure she can't place. Not only that, but they seem to be continually connected to water, whether in the dream itself or by the medium of a knocked-over glass of drinking water next to the bed. But soon enough, inexplicable things begin to happen to her in reality as well - echoes of her dreams, the ghosts of her forgotten past invading her waking life.

During this time, Ji-won gets a blast from the past: Yu-jung (Jeon Hee-ju), an old friend from high school, comes to find her after she saw her in a dream - and not only that, one of the other girls, Eun-seo, has died after telling this girl she had seen something bizarre. It's not long before Yu-jung also has a terrifying supernatural experience with the ghost Eun-jung never sent back.

Now three of her closest friends from high school are dying under mysterious circumstances. But what is the identity of this ghost, how is it linked to her own forgotten past, and can Ji-won find out how to save herself?

As Ji-won investigates the mystery, she remembers exactly what happened to her friends and herself. She finds out that she was the one who pushed Su-in (Nam Sang-mi) in the water but her friends pushed her too. And both of them started to drown but Su-in tried to save her. They later found Su-in's dead body.

As Ji-won goes home to see her mother, it is revealed that her mother's body was possessed by Ji-won and "Ji-won" was actually Su-in in Ji-won's body. Then Ji-won's ghost start to rise, wanting her body back, so Su-in/Ji-won grabs a broken piece of a vase and cuts her wrist, repelling her. She is saved in time by her friend and sent to the hospital, with Su-in's soul still inside her. As Su-in walks across on outside fish market, a woman cuts off a fish head to roughly, inferring that Ji-won is now in another body and still determined to get her own body back from Su-in.

Cast

References

  1. ↑ Soh, Joon (17 June 2004). "Ghost Adds Little to High School Horror". The Korea Times via Hancinema. Retrieved 2013-07-28.

External links