When Fear Supplants Evidence
Discussing "The Wailing" (2016)
If The Wailing was a meme, it would be “congratulations, you played yourself.” But that’s probably too lighthearted for the film’s tone and message. The Wailing is a 2016 parable set in Gokseong, South Korea.
Police sergeant Jong-goo is called to investigate the brutal killing of a local family. During his investigations, his young daughter falls ill with a mysterious disease that has been plaguing their remote village. Local rumors convince Jong-goo that a mysterious Japanese man, who arrived shortly before the illness began, is responsible for his daughter’s disease and derangement.
Film Stats
Directed by: Na Hong-jin
Written by: Na Hong-jin
Starring: Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee, Jun Kunimura
Run time: ~2.5 hours
Languages: Korean and Japanese
Where to watch: Prime Video
Rating: 4/5
The Wailing hits on so many themes, I had to watch it twice to build a coherent thesis. At the most surface level, we have the fear of disease and family death. Hyo-jin’s illness would be terrifying to any parent. She’s lethargic, feverish, and delusional, then, when she is energetic, she’s temperamental and ravenous—even for food she dislikes. There is no clear cause, and all we know is that everyone who has shown these symptoms so far has gone crazy and killed their families.
A father would do anything to cure his daughter of this mysterious disease. So when a rumor arises that the village’s newest arrival—a stranger from another country, no less—appeared at the same time as this mysterious illness, it’s understandable that Jong-goo would latch onto the only theory available.
How do we deal with mysterious illnesses today? Can we claim to follow the most logical paths? Gokseong is a rural village. This story is not about the rich pursuing medical advancements in the world’s top hospitals. It’s about a town where superstition and desperation mix into well-meant, dangerous decisions.
Shamanism, Buddhism, and Christianity are all at play in The Wailing. I don’t have the religious or cultural education to explain the weight each of these faiths carries in rural Korean culture, but it is clear that the writer/director has a point of view on faith and its impact.
We follow four religious figures in The Wailing. The first we meet is Yang I-sam, a young deacon who spent some years in Japan. He is enlisted to translate between Jong-goo and the Japanese man. His faith doesn’t appear much until the end of the film, so we’ll put a pin in Christianity for now.
The second figure is the shaman Il-gwang. He is called in to exorcise Hyo-jin. Her grandmother summoned him, after hearing Hyo-jin sob that a man was knocking at her door in the night. Il-gwang investigates the family’s home, revealing a dead crow hidden in one of their soy sauce jars. Before this scene, we see crows eating the Japanese man’s dog, whom Jong-goo killed after it attacked him.
Il-gwang says the Japanese man is a ghost, who has possessed Hyo-jin. He performs two rituals, which leave Hyo-jin screaming in pain, until her father stops the second rite mid-performance. After being psychically attacked by a mysterious woman at Jong-goo’s home, the shaman flees Gokseong, only to be driven back by a swarm of moths impacting his car’s windshield. The moths vanish the moment Il-gwang runs from his car. As he returns to Gokseong, Il-gwang calls Jong-goo, entreating him to stay with Hyo-jin at all times.
While events with Il-gwang are unfolding, Jong-goo also meets a mysterious woman wearing white. As he sits watch near a local home, where a crazed mother killed her family then hanged herself, the woman approaches him. She shows him the spot where the murders happened and claims the Japanese man is an evil spirit, there to kill villagers and drain their blood. During the film, the English subtitles use the slur “Jap,” suggesting there is a xenophobic bent to the woman’s warning.
In the end, we learn that this mysterious woman is also a ghost. Women dressed in white are a common appearance for ghosts, and one Korean term for such a spirit is Cheonyeogwisin (virgin ghost). The mysterious woman urges Jong-goo not to heed Il-gwang’s command to stay near his daughter. She tells Jong-goo that the Japanese man is also a ghost, and the shaman is his accomplice. The evil ghost has possessed Hyo-jin as punishment for her father’s sin: Jong-goo accused an innocent man and chased him to his death.
Jong-goo takes this pronouncement as a sign that the woman is the evil spirit, not the old man. Hyo-jin was sick before Jong-goo killed the Japanese stranger. Jong-goo returns home, where he finds his wife and mother-in-law brutally murdered. Meanwhile, Yang I-sam (the deacon) has returned to the Japanese man’s property, where he follows a light to a hidden cave. There, he confronts the Japanese man, calling him the devil. As we hear Jong-good’s terrified cries, the mysterious woman sinks to the ground, and the Japanese man laughs, transforming into a demon.
So, what’s happening here? We have two ghosts and two humans, fighting to to save or kill Jong-goo’s family. The most basic version is this: the old Japanese man is a demon, and he is doing bad things (like bringing the dead back as zombies), but he would not have targeted Hyo-jin had Jong-goo not attacked him. The shaman is human and serves the demon, somewhat unwillingly. He attempts to flee from the virgin ghost, but is forced to return, presumably by the demon.
The woman in white is there to protect the village. Every time she appears, she is wearing something that belonged to one of the demon’s victims. It’s never clarified why she appears this way, but it is part of what makes Jong-goo distrust her: both she and the demon are tied to every tragedy.
Yang I-sam does not deal directly with any spirit except the old man. He is timid throughout, until the final moments, when he confronts the demon directly. But the demon only mocks him, quoting the scripture shown at the film’s beginning:
But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.
And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?
See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
Even before the demon reveals his true face, we know that Jong-goo is in some way responsible for his own suffering. Throughout the film, people have been falling ill, with rashes, boils, hallucinations, and violent outbursts. Hyo-jin shows all the same symptoms. Near the movie’s end, Jong-goo’s police colleague is arrested, having killed his family. Was he also possessed? No. He was a victim in a medical scandal: a mushroom-based health tonic caused the outbreak.
He was both a perpetrator and a victim. A police officer in that scene even spells it out for us. You can be both victim and victimizer. And your crows will always come home to roost.
Perhaps you noticed at the beginning of this post that I referred to The Wailing as a parable. That term didn’t occur to me until I sat down to write, but I believe it is apt.
The Wailing’s moral is “do not believe what you have not seen with your own eyes.” Like the scripture excerpt says: “See my hands and feet…. Touch me, and see.”
Jong-goo is at first willing to go with the scientific answer: the first killer had tons of poisonous mushroom in his system. But he allows fear to overwhelm his logic. Was he correct that the Japanese man is evil? Yes, that fear and those town rumors were likely valid. But Jong-goo allowed the fear to tempt him away from pursuing an evidence-driven answer toward a fear-driven assault on the old man’s person and property.
And Jong-goo did kill a dog with a pick-axe. The dog did attack him, but only because it was defending its territory. No one is all good here, except for Hyo-jin, the poor lamb chosen as the sacrifice for Jung-goo’s punishment.
I wish I knew more religious symbolism, as there is probably plenty that I missed. If anything struck you about the religious themes, let me know in the comments. The Wailing is more than any one theme or genre. It is a parable, it is a ghost story, it is a family tragedy, and it is a murder mystery. I would recommend The Wailing for anyone interested in that special combination.
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On Monday, you’ll get the free Weekly Quick Hits, and next Tuesday I will share the narrated version of this article. xx
