It's been nearly 10 years since this film came out. (Precisely 8 years, but who cares.) Moon Geun-young, the nation's little sister at the time (she was a rare acting talent who attended a place called 'International High School' in the neighborhood I lived in...), Im Soo-jung, who maintains a youthful face even now, Kim Gap-soo, who supposedly always dies whenever he appears, and Yum Jung-ah, all appeared in it. Moon Geun-young and Im Soo-jung played the daughters, and Kim Gap-soo and Yum Jung-ah played the father and stepmother.
The film's title makes you think of one of the classic novels, 'The Story of Janghwa and Hongryeon,' and in a way, the reason for using the title 'A Tale of Two Sisters' seems to be the subject of the 'stepmother' and the 'stepmother's' abuse of the younger sister that you can feel in the content. Of course, even the existence of this younger sister (Moon Geun-young) ends up proceeding as Im Soo-jung's 'illusion,' so you could say there are many ambiguous points, and because of this I could get a strange feeling that the film's larger framework is maintained yet at the same time goes askew.
Su-mi (Im Soo-jung) can be seen as a kind of 'person with multiple personalities,' or can be interpreted as having shown behaviors that are utterly natural and unavoidable. The general view that the existence of 'Su-yeon' is precisely an 'illusion,' and that the existence of the 'stepmother' who appears from the start is a personality acting as one of Su-mi's 'multiple personalities,' has plenty of validity. In the scene early in the film where Im Soo-jung and Moon Geun-young are dipping their feet in the river, Moon Geun-young's feet don't appear on screen and only Im Soo-jung's feet appear, and this 'illusion' can also be known through the scene at the film's ending where Im Soo-jung sits alone by the river. Also, in the scene where Kim Gap-soo tells Im Soo-jung that 'Su-yeon is already dead,' you can likewise tell that the existence of 'Su-yeon' isn't there because she's already in a dead state, and the fact that Yum Jung-ah and Im Soo-jung have the same menstrual dates could to some extent serve as 'evidence' too.
In any case, for various pieces of evidence, people had defined Im Soo-jung as a person with multiple personalities who created the illusions of 'Yum Jung-ah' and 'Moon Geun-young,' and I too felt no reason to refute that claim.
Because the biggest issue when I first watched the film was that I couldn't immediately understand it, when I read the above accounts, the main thing was that I accepted them, thinking, ah, that's quite a valid view...
One of this film's distinctive points is precisely the imagery of 'flowers.' Usually the image of flowers appeared in films with images like 'beauty' and 'elegance' over 90 percent of the time, I think. But the flowers in 'A Tale of Two Sisters' give off something eerie. In the film's intro, the film's title appears in red letters, and those letters appeared against a background drawn in green with two goblin faces set against a backdrop of 'flowers.' Even though it's a truly mysterious color combination, this was the first time it felt this eerie. Moreover, this 'flower' pattern frequently appears on Im Soo-jung's and Moon Geun-young's clothes. At the river, on the bench, in the 'lace' of the dresses they wear to sleep, even in the 'wardrobe,' everything is flowers. Yet these flowers, far from looking beautiful, are only frightening.
The gold metallic top, black skirt, and red lipstick Yum Jung-ah wore at first were even a little grotesque. After that, the clothes Yum Jung-ah wears give off a somewhat 'intense' feeling in color. A glossy blue that seems mixed with metal, an intense red, a pure white, and so on—everything showed traces of having been carefully considered one by one. Should I say the director's sense of 'color' was just so outstanding?
I wanted to talk about artistry at least once, but I hesitate a bit over what kind of artistry I could discuss in this film. I don't know much about the film genre, and drawing out artistry from this work feels a bit strange too, so I'll just set this story aside.
If you want to know the fearfulness of color, watch this film at least once.
I dislike the color combinations that appear in this film.
The color combinations of the clothes I wear do contain intensity,
but they always try to give a bright feeling,
so why is this film so dark;;
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