A TALE OF TWO SISTERS is part of Kim Jee-woon retrospective at BAM
THE CINEMA OF KIM JEE-WOON: A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (Kim Jee-woon, 2003)
BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Sunday, February 27, 2:00, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15
Series continues through March 2
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
Returning home after having been hospitalized for mental reasons, sisters Su-mi (Im Su-jeong) and Su-yeon (Moon Geun Young) find their house very different — in addition to their father (Kim Kap-su) and his second wife, Eun-joo (Yeom Jeong-ah), there appears to be an unexplained presence that seems particularly interested in the extremely vulnerable Su-yeon. As tensions mount between the girls and the wicked stepmother, more and more blood shows up, as well as far too many confusing twists and turns. Though there is a lot to admire in this gripping psychological thriller, you’ll be scratching your head at the end, wondering just what the heck you have just seen. An Asian mix of The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999), Sisters (Brian DePalma, 1973), and the Cinderella fairy tale, Kim Jee-woon’s film has plenty of creeps that unfortunately never come together. Still, it was recently remade by Hollywood as The Uninvited, directed by Charles and Thomas Guard and starring David Strathairn and Elizabeth Banks.
A Tale of Two Sisters is screening February 27 as part of BAMcinématek’s “Severely Damaged: The Cinema of Kim Jee-woon,” which began last night with the Korean director’s latest, I Saw the Devil (2010), and continues today with A Bittersweet Life (2005), The Quiet Family (1998) on February 28, The Foul King (2000) on March 1, and The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008) on March 2. The series gets its title from what the Korean government said about I Saw the Devil before seven minutes were cut out, proclaiming that it “severely damaged the dignity of human values.”