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[HanCinema's Film Review] "Suddenly in Dark Night"

Kim Ki-young's "The Housemaid - 1960" is one of the most influential Korean films of all times, as the plethora of the remakes and the titles inspired by it eloquently suggest. Go Yeong-nam, Korea's most prolific director with 110 films to his credit, was bound to try his hand in one such film, with "Suddenly in the Night" sharing many similarities with the 1960 masterpiece, but also a  number of differences that deem it something more than a simple copy.

"Suddenly in Dark Night" screened at Five Flavours Film Festival

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Seon-hee is the neglected wife of a wealthy biology professor and butterfly researcher, Yoo-jin, who frequently leaves her for excursions in the country, in order to discover new species. Their sex life is satisfying, and Seon-hee leaves in wealth but his getting aways leave her feeling alone, and the way her only close friend stresses the fact does not make things easier, as she intensifies the fears of her husband cheating on her. One day, Yoo-jin returns home with a young, beautiful girl, Mi-ok, the daughter of a saman priestess who recently died in a house fire. Seon-hee is initially surprised, but when she learns that the girl will be her maid, she ends up being delighted. A bit later though, and after a fight with the couple's young daughter, Mi-ok is revealed to carry with her a creepy wooden doll, whom Seon-hee has been seeing in her nightmares. As time passes, Seon-hee becomes increasingly suspicious of the girl, thinking she wants to steal both her husband and her household from her. Eventually, her behaviour becomes so erratic, that her husband begins to believe that she is in need of a psychiatrist. Something strange, however, is happening with the new girl.

Go Yeong-nam directs a film whose voyeuristic sensuality is combined with elements of supernatural horror and psychological thriller, creating an amalgam that manages to be rather entertaining and intriguing, despite the evident lack of coherence and the plethora of hyperbole that characterize its narrative. The latter issues in particular, derive mostly from an approach that has him including a number of elements in the story and the style, completely forgetting them as the movie unfolds. For example, in the beginning, there is a rather evident sapphic aspect, as presented through the magazine Seon-hee checks in her friend's house, and her fascination with the young girl's body, with the bath scene highlighting the fact in the most eloquent fashion. This element, however, is completely forgotten onwards, even if the dreams Seon-hee sees with the husband and the maid could be interpreted as a continuation of this tendency, in masochistic fashion.

Technically, the many kaleidoscopic sequences of the beginning soon give their stead to less "intricate" techniques, with the same applying to the jump scares. Furthermore, the finale moves towards a completely different direction cinematically, as all hell's breaks loose in a way that has nothing to do with the relatively realistic approach of the rest of the movie. Lastly, the way that the daughter of the couple is almost completely disconnected from the story, completes this almost absurd approach.

The aforementioned however, do not mean that the movie is completely void of consistency. The voyeuristic approach, as implemented by DP Jeong Pil-si, permeates the narrative from beginning to end, with Mi-ok's body serving as the main medium, even in the moments where she is not naked, in an approach that essentially borders on the perverse. The same applies to the psychological downward spiral of Seon-hee, which is the element most elaborately presented here, as its gradual heightening works excellently for the narrative. At that fashion, the fact that she is never depicted naked, even in the sex scenes, in contrast to her maid, emerges as a rather significant element in the presentation of the differences of the two, which is another key aspect of the narrative, in a rather entertaining housewife vs femme fatale approach that actually carries until the end of the movie. These two elements benefit the most by Kim Young-ae's acting, whose path towards madness is one of the most impressive traits of the movie, and the way Go Yeong-nam presents, through brief scenes showing Mi-ok laughing sinisterly, that not everything is in the protagonist's mind. Lee Ki-seon's acting in the role of the maid is not on the same level as her co-protagonist's, but both director and cinematographer fully utilize her appearance, particularly her impressive body, resulting in a performance that justifies her casting, to say the least. .

"Suddenly in Dark Night" has its faults, but in the end, emerges as a rather entertaining movie, that will definitely satisfy fans of cult horror.

Review by Panos Kotzathanasis

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"Suddenly in Dark Night" is directed by Go Yeong-nam, and features Yoon Il-bong, Kim Young-ae, Lee Ki-seon, Han Hye-ri-I, Kim Min-kyu-IV, Kim Gi-jong. Release date in Korea: 1981/07/17.

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