“A Tale Of Two Sisters” is a Subtle Horror That Takes Evil Stepmother’s To The Next Level

“A Tale Of Two Sisters” Review

In the 2003 South Korean horror film, “A Tale of Two Sisters” director and writer Jee-Woon Kim serves up a tale of a fractured family and the darkness and secrets we keep hidden within us. “A Tale of Two Sisters” masters the art of the ‘slow build’ and as a peculiar past event is gradually revealed it manages to hit viewers straight in the heart and promises to stay in their thoughts long after the credits go dark.

The opening sequence starts us off in a sterile white hospital room, where teenager Su-Mi faces one last Q & A session with her doctor. The cheerful family photograph he asks her about is linked to something especially dark from Su-Mi’s past, something she refuses to acknowledge with a single word. Silent, shoulders tensed and her long black hair shielding her face, Su-Mi makes her debut as a vulnerable and broken husk of a girl. Regardless of their conversation being one-sided, the good doctor discharges Su-Mi and she returns back to her family. After a scenic car ride, Su-Mi emerges at her lush green countryside home, and with her, is her little sister Su-Yeon. 

Su-Yeon and Su-Mi reacquaint themselves with their surroundings

It’s a little isolated, but it’s surrounded by flowers and plants and a quaint little body of water dock and the girls immediately soak up the sunshine. Gone is the trembling voiceless girl in the first scene, Su-Mi, stands tall and leads her Su-Yeon by the hand. With her delicate pixie cut and close-to-tears default expression, actress Geun-Young Moon instantly creates a character that we can’t help but root for and want to love. Su-Mi fiercely protects and encourages her sister in several touching scenes and their bond is at times more like mother-and-daughter.

Su-Mi and Su-Yeon’s idyllic homecoming is far from sweet when they’re welcomed back by their father’s new wife, and now their stepmother, Eun-Joo. There’s an edge to her voice, and a certain sharpness to the smile of her perfectly lipstick painted mouth, and a promise in her eyes of ill to come. The way the environment of the house in “A Tale of Two Sisters”  is crafted starts off as charming but soon becomes, too big, too ominous, and too empty. The dark and foreboding cinematography transports us into a place where a family, rife with animosity and untold secrets is on the brink of collapse.

Eun-Joo is less than thrilled to have the girls back.

The shadow play on the screen doesn’t make for jump scares but it sets an eerie tone, especially when combined with an antique wardrobe, and the pill-popping Stepmother Eun-Joo who grows increasingly more manic and agitated as the story progresses. The house is saturated in paranoia. Tensions mount when Su-Mi catches her stepmother, Eun-Joo, lurking by Su-Yeon’s bedroom. Looks like her phantom night time assault wasn’t a specter after all, but a very real, very bitter, woman. Eun-Joo resents her step-daughter’s homecoming and makes passive aggressive and thinly veiled comments to the two, that is...when she’s not shrieking at and manhandling a timid Su-Yeon.

On one of her first nights back in the house, Su-Mi sees a ghastly vision of her mother screaming and bleeding profusely. Su-Mi starts awake to see blood trickling down her thighs. And next to her, in her white nightie Su-Yeon too, left a bloodstain on the crisp bed sheets --all three women got their periods at the same time. It’s a kind of subtle horror that promises at more eeriness to come. Take Su-Mi’s gruesome discovery. In the refrigerator cast in the glow of the light she gulps down a water bottle and encounters a parcel wrapped in butcher’s paper. She carefully peels away the wrappings to see what’s beneath, and to her great horror (and ours ) it’s not just any nasty hunk of meat….no it’s a hunk of raw, human flesh. Not long after, a dinner party gone horribly wrong ends with the girls Uncle’s wife lapsing into a violent seizure on the floor-- frothing, screaming, gagging as though she’s a woman possessed. In the blink of an eye, a haggard ghost girl appears under the oven, grasping, and seething.

Dinner is a subdued affair when it's not being hijacked by ghosts.

The dark forces in the Bae household intensify and more and more sinister things begin to happen. And with them, Su-Mi notices the trails of bruises around Su-Yeon and knows without a doubt, Eun-Joo is continuing to torment her. Su-Yeon’s quiet acceptance of her fate and her refusal to speak out is utterly heartbreaking. A battle of the wills springs up against stepmother and stepdaughter-- as Su-Mi grows more defiant and hateful of Eun-Joo, Eun-Joo grows more desperate and furious. Their screaming matches shatter any chance of peace falling upon the household.

A light in the darkness comes when the girls stumble upon a treasure trove of goodies. Literally! A wooden chest filled with stacks of photographs of their beloved late mother, and father--snapshots of them as a family, before Eun-Joo came into the picture. As the girls bond over the photos and relive happy memories, they see a disturbing pattern emerge. Eun-Joo is the subject in more and more of the images--and as viewers we see that she was actually at first, Su-Mi’s and Su-Yeon’s mother’s nurse when she was seriously ill. It’s implied, from her possessive behavior and the natural progression of the photos that Eun-Joo moved in on the Su-Mi and Su-Yeon’s father and began having an affair with him before their mother had passed away. 

 The twist at the end makes this a must-watch for an horror aficionado. The last thirty minutes of “A Tale Of Two Sisters” is pulse-pounding revelation after revelation that fill in the gaps between many of the bizarre happenings. Su-Yeon’s aversion to her wardrobe is revealed in an devastating montage that won’t be soon forgotten by any viewer, and Eun-Joo’s skin-crawlingly sinister nature finally comes to light.  

Photosfrom asianwiki.com and google images