Putting the feeling in horror

KOREAN filmmaker Kim Jee-Woon’s latest film, “A Tale of Two Sisters,” is a brooding, increasingly creepy story about the fate of a pair of disturbed siblings under the not-too-recuperative care of their distant father and their harsh stepmother.

In South Korea it was the kind of box office hit any director would love -- the country’s third highest grosser for 2003 -- but partly for a reason that’s a surprising admission from Kim: moviegoer bewilderment.

“I think one of the elements of the movie’s success is the difficulty in understanding it,” Kim said on the phone recently from Seoul, through a translator. “People tend to watch the movie twice, three, four times, and then they like to talk about it afterward, puzzling it out and discussing it.”

The confusion was intended, though. Kim deliberately filtered the movie’s horror elements -- a creaky house alone in the country, ghostly figures, a menacing closet, the mysterious past death of the sisters’ mother -- through the point of view of characters whose reality may not be tenable.

“I didn’t give the audience clear clues, because I wanted the movie to symbolize a chaotic mind.”

The story is based on an old Korean folk tale that had been filmed five times before called “Rose Flower, Red Lotus” (the translation of the movie’s Korean title “Janghwa, Hongryeon”), in which a stepmother cruelly lords over her stepchildren.

But Kim wanted his movie to eschew conventional good versus evil constructs and find emotional resonance rooted in what the sisters feel. It’s a dramatic consideration that has struck a chord with audiences, and goes a way toward explaining the burgeoning success of horror films from Japan (“Ringu,” “Dark Water”), Thailand (“The Eye”) and Korea, where family secrets and ill deeds done to children have haunting, lasting repercussions.

A fan of horror, Kim sees a continental difference in how the genre is mined on screen.

“Western horror films deal with the phenomenon of horror, and once you leave the theater, that phenomenon is gone, but Eastern films deal with its origins,” Kim said. “Even after you leave the theater, there’s still some anxiety. It makes you consider the horror in ordinary life.”

Kim doesn’t believe in ghosts necessarily, but he accepts a kind of daily supernaturalism. “There are things people cannot reach or sense, that are invisible,” he said.

Born and raised in Seoul, Kim studied theater directing and acting at Seoul Arts School before turning his attention to film. “Watching a lot of movies” was his cinema education, he said, and his influences are as varied as Robert Bresson -- “he dealt with people’s souls with pure originality” -- and the Coen brothers, whom Kim admires for making enjoyable commercial pictures that are wholly their own.

From Asia, meanwhile, he reveres the dark, cynical domestic dramas of early-20th century Japanese director Naruse Mikio (“Floating Clouds”) and the work of Korean bad boy Kim Ki-Young, whose grotesque 1960 classic “The Housemaid” is in certain ways a psychosexual precursor for “A Tale of Two Sisters.”

Although “Two Sisters” is only Kim’s third feature -- he’s also made two shorts -- he’s already shown a willingness to jump genres. His first film, “The Quiet Family,” is a black comedy, and his second, “The Foul King,” is a social satire about a mousy office worker who becomes a wrestling star.

The film he’s shooting now, called “A Bittersweet Life,” he labels a film noir with action.

“Selecting genre is selecting theme,” said Kim. “Once I have the story, I find what genre fits.”

He wants to eventually work in as many genres as possible, except one.

“Each has its foolish points, but romantic comedy is the most foolish,” he said, laughing.

With the increasing popularity worldwide of Asian horror titles, it’s no surprise Kim’s movie was snapped up by DreamWorks last year in a bidding war for remake rights. (The studio kicked off this trend with “The Ring,” its successful Americanization of the Japanese cult hit “Ringu.”)

DreamWorks executive Mark Sourian applauds the way Kim and other Asian filmmakers create a palpably unnerving visual language.

“They can take seemingly banal things -- the sight of a doorknob, or a mirror -- and imbue them with real horrific meaning,” Sourian said. “That’s a hard thing to do, and these guys do it really well. And this one has its own distinctive twists and turns. We’re really excited about it.”

Kim isn’t slated to shoot the remake, the way Japanese directors Takeshi Shimizu and Hideo Nakata were commissioned to shepherd American versions of their movies (“The Grudge” and “The Ring 2,” respectively) to the screen.

Nonetheless, Kim has a few marquee names in mind: Billy Bob Thornton as the father, Julianne Moore as the stepmother, and Scarlett Johansson and Dakota Fanning as the sisters. But isn’t Fanning too young?

“I don’t know a lot about that actress,” he admitted. (As for the Internet rumor, first posted on Defamer, that ex-child stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen would play the titular sibs in the DreamWorks film, Sourian denies that such talks with the Olsens or their representatives have taken place.)

What Kim most wishes from the remake is fealty to the nonfright elements, the stuff he believes sets his movie -- and most Eastern scare pictures -- apart.

“When I made the film, I wanted to tell a sad story with beautiful images, not just a horror film,” said Kim. “I hope they don’t miss that.”