The Priests

I was entertained by this Korean film with two priests unofficially assigned to remove the devil from a teenage girl. The acting is top notch and the script has a decent sense of humor. As a Catholic with some knowledge of my church's beliefs, I found the story to be well done. Nothing new in the popular theme but I was o.k. With the result.

Normally eastern horror movies would dabble in traditional myth or folklore, for example the haunting of girl with white dress and long hair which plagues Japan, China and even Indonesia. It's a pleasant surprise that a Korean movie tries to incorporate possession and religious tone into this genre. By maintaining respect from the original source and using it in unique atmosphere, this is a commendable as well as a successful excursion to other side of horror.

A young deacon (Dong-won Kang) is called to assist Father Kim (Yun-seok Kim) in the exorcism of a young high school girl. Both men have no connection before, and their personalities are too far apart. This is not the usual mentor and student relationship, the older Father is weary and brash which makes him a contrasting character to the young deacon. However, necessity ensures that they have to work together.

The first act is admittedly rather slow, it gives a nice look of the priests' lives and appreciated details about possession. However, this tends to stall a bit as the movie strolls through some subplots that are not necessarily crucial to the story. It ramps up significantly as the two priests walk closer towards possessed girl, at this point visual dims to portray dark premonition against the bright light of modern city.

This is suspense build up and showcase of exorcism done right. Its unusual oriental vibe works in the movie's favor by clashing the cultures together. Details like traditional rituals, tight apartments and occasional bleak view on metropolis splendidly set up the ambiance. The cinematography used is extremely chilling and engaging, viewing the struggle in creepy close encounter. This rings especially true when they face the malicious entity.

At its peak this is one of the most eerie displays of the genre. The exorcism in the east uses enigmatic theme and unorthodox setting to conjure novelty and gripping terror.

You wouldn't normally expect to see a full-blown exorcism in a South Korean movie, so consider us intrigued when we first heard of writer/ director Jang Jae-hyun's 'The Priests'. True enough, Jang's film is the first of its kind to dabble in the 'occult', a genre typically associated with Western cinema for both cultural and historical reasons. Digging deep into Roman Catholic theology to deliver a largely accurate depiction of the oft-misunderstood ritual, Jang delivers a tense and frequently edge-of-your-seat gripping portrait of the eternal fight between light and darkness, a theme which he also similarly explored in his award-winning 2014 short '12th Assistant Deacon'.

As in that short, the key protagonists are a renegade priest Father Kim (Kim Yun-seok) and a priest-in-training Deacon Choi (Gang Dong- won), who team up to save a young girl Young-shin (Park So-dam) that begins to exhibit one of the twelve manifestations of evil tracked by the Rosicrucrianism after a hit-and-run accident. Young-shin was a member of Father Kim's congregation when he was a priest of a church in the countryside, and it is partly their history that compels him to take matters into his own hands when the other members of his flock disapprove of his intentions to conduct an exorcism for Young-shin for fear of spooking the public.

It is hardly the first time that Kim is playing the role of the rebellious, tough-talking veteran, and he does it here with aplomb. He expresses with keenness not only the toll that Father Kim's fight with the demon inside Young-shin has taken on him, but also the conviction of his character's faith in the power of God over evil that gives him the strength to press on. Yet the film belongs as much to Father Kim as it does to Deacon Choi, a fresh-eyed ingénue who is plucked out of theology school to assist Father Kim while acting as spy for the larger Catholic fraternity to keep an eye on their wayward brethren - and unlike Father Kim, his motivation is less to save a life than to save himself from a life of studying in the seminary.

Needless to say, Deacon Choi soon finds himself way out of his depth as he is confronted with the very definition of evil, but there is more to Choi than just his naivety; indeed, Choi remains haunted to this day by the guilt of a traumatic childhood accident where he failed to save his sister from being bitten to death by a ferocious dog. It is this frailty that the demon will exploit to taunt and scare him in the midst of the rite of exorcism, and Gang embodies his character's transformation from fear to temerity with wide-eyed wonder and tenacity. His character is intended as Father Kim's complement as well as a passing-of-the-baton from veteran to rookie, and Gang shares an engaging dynamic with Kim in their scenes together.

Rather than contrive to take his audiences through a protracted story of Father Kim's battle with the demon within Young-shin, Jang opts for a much simpler narrative that places its emphasis on authenticity. Pretty much most of the first half is set-up for an elaborate display of the ritual in the second half, which takes place over the course of one full-moon night in a dingy top-floor apartment located at the heart of the bustling Myeong-dong district. Nonetheless, the first hour remains a riveting watch, constructed with scenes to underscore the peril that Father Kim and Deacon Choi will soon find themselves in. The procedure itself in its full extended glory is also more than worth the wait, packed with moments of sheer terror as the duo attempt to draw the evil spirit to reveal its name while overcoming their own personal demons.

For being the first of its kind, Jang deserves even more credit for successfully demonstrating how to 'localise' a genre that has never been associated with K-cinema or K-horror for that matter. Despite being his feature filmmaking debut, Jang exhibits a strong grasp of mise-en-scene, especially with the contrast of light and dark in the film's visuals. Jang's choice to film his movie on location in busy neighbourhoods and districts in Seoul, Anyang and Daegu also gives it a strong sense of place, and a particularly nice touch in that regard is the depiction of a traditional Korean shamanistic ritual right before the rite of exorcism. Oh yes, 'The Priests' is terrifying all right, bolstered in part by its heightened sense of realism, and besides being a bold new entry into a subject matter yet unexplored in that context, it is a perfectly worthy addition to the genre in its own right.

This was actually really scary at times, and later quite disturbing as the possession intensified. I did find it a bit slow moving somewhere around the mid point, but it was still interesting, though. The ending is awesome! It gets really exciting with a possessed pig, police chase, cars crashing left, right and center, and a priest running out of time. Wow!

Every movie that has exorcisms in it, has the "problem" that it will be compared with The Exorcist. There's no way around it, but if you can try to keep an open mind. I don't know if this is actually the very first South Korean exorcism film or not. What I do know though, is the quality is very high.

The acting, the set up and the scenes are very powerful. This can stand on its own, which is quite impressive. The horror that you get is quite impressive, especially if you consider that we have seen a lot of movies trying this. Cinematography and script are really good and I can recommend this, if you like horror movies