IT’S OK TO NOT BE OK eps 13: “THE TALE OF TWO SISTERS”

A JOSEON ERA FOLK TALE

JANGHWA HONGRYEON, The Legend Behind “A TALE OF TWO SISTERS”

Introduction

Once upon a time, there was a man named Muryong whose wife had a dream where an angel gave her a beautiful flower. Nine months later, she gave birth to a pretty baby girl, who the couple named “Janghwa” (“Rose Flower”). Two years later, they had another pretty girl and named her “Hongryeon” (“Red Lotus”). Unfortunately, the mother died when Hongryeon was 5 years old; and soon thereafter, the father remarried to continue his line. The new stepmother was both ugly and cruel. She hated her stepdaughters, but hid those feelings, only to reveal them once she had three sons in a row, which gave her a good deal of power, and she abused the girls in every possible way. But Janghwa and Hongryeon never told their father about any of it.

Conflict

When Janghwa came of age and got engaged, Father told his second wife to help Janghwa plan a wedding ceremony. Stepmother became angry, not wanting to spend a penny of “her family’s money” or “her sons’ future fortune” on Janghwa. So she came up with a dirty plan: One night when Janghwa was sleeping, Stepmother had her eldest son put a dead skinned rat in Janghwa’s bed. Early the next morning, she brought Father to Janghwa’s room, telling him she’d had a bad dream about her elder stepdaughter. When she pulled back the covers on Janghwa’s bed, something that looked like a very bloody miscarriage shocked everybody in the room. Stepmother accused Janghwa of unchaste behavior, having an out-of-wedlock child. Father believed this. Janghwa did not know what to do so she ran out of the house to a small pond in the nearby woods. Stepmother ordered her eldest son to follow Janghwa and push her into the pond. As Janghwa drowned, suddenly came a huge tiger who attacked Stepmother’s eldest son, taking one leg and one arm from him.

Stepmother got what she wanted–Janghwa’s death–but at the cost of her own son’s health. She turned her anger upon Hongryeon, hating and abusing this remaining stepdaughter more than ever. Unable to bear this treatment on top of the loss of her beloved sister, Hongryeon soon followed Janghwa; her body was found in the same pond in which Janghwa had drowned.

After that, whenever a new mayor came to the village, he was found dead a day after his arrival. As this kept happening, mysterious rumors spread through the village, but no one knew for sure what had happened to the men or for what reason.

Resolution

A brave young man came to the village as a new mayor. He was aware of the deaths of predecessors, but he was not afraid for his own life. When night came, he was sitting in his room when his candle was suddenly blown out and gruesome noises filled the air. The door opened to reveal no one, at first, but then the new mayor saw two young female ghosts. He asked them who they were and why they had killed the previous mayors. Weeping, the elder sister explained that all they wanted was to let people know the truth: the elder girl had not been an unchaste girl who committed suicide in shame. She had been framed by her stepmother and murdered by her eldest half-brother. The mayor asked the ghost of Janghwa for any evidence of this. Janghwa told him to examine the miscarried fetus that Stepmother had shown to the villagers.

Conclusion

The next morning, the new mayor did what the sisters’ ghosts had asked him to do. He summoned Father, Stepmother, and the eldest son and examined the fetus that Stepmother insisted had come from Janghwa’s body. When he split it with a knife, it was revealed to be a rat. Stepmother and her eldest son were sentenced to death. Father, however, was set free because the mayor thought Father had known nothing of Stepmother’s evil plan and in fact was just another victim.

Years later, Father married again. On the night of his third wedding, he saw his two daughters in a dream. They said that since things were as they should be, they wanted to come back to him. Nine months later, Father’s third wife delivered twin girls. Father named these twins “Janghwa” and “Hongryeon” and loved them very much. The new family lived happily ever after.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janghwa_Hongryeon_jeon

A TALE OF TWO SISTERS ( a psychological horror drama film 2003) by Kim Jee-woon.

Plot

A teenage girl, Su-mi (Im Soo-jung), is being treated for shock and psychosis in a mental institution. She is released and returns home to her family’s secluded estate in the countryside with her father (Kim Kap-soo) and younger sister Su-yeon (Moon Geun-young), whom she is protective over. The sisters have a cold reunion with their stepmother, Eun-joo (Yum Jung-ah).

Su-mi has a nightmare of her late mother’s ghost. The next day, she finds family photos which reveal that Eun-joo was formerly an in-home nurse for her then-terminally ill mother. She discovers bruises on her sister’s arms and angrily confronts Eun-joo about the abuse. That night, their uncle and his wife arrive for dinner and Eun-joo tells bizarre stories that bewilder them. The uncle’s wife suffers a violent seizure and tells her husband that she saw the ghost of a young girl beneath the kitchen sink. When Eun-joo is in the kitchen alone, a ghost girl is seen watching her in the background.

After finding her pet bird dead and seeing defaced photos of herself, Eun-joo locks Su-yeon in the closet. Su-mi releases her hysterical sister and is confronted by their father, who begs her to stop acting out. She retorts that he is blind to Eun-joo’s abuse against Su-yeon. Her father tells her that Su-yeon is dead but Su-mi refuses to believe it.

The next morning, Eun-joo drags a bloodied sack through the house, whipping it. Su-mi believes that Su-yeon is inside the sack and she and Eun-joo and Su-mi get into a violent physical altercation. Su-mi’s father arrives to find an injured Su-mi unconscious.

It is ultimately revealed that Su-mi and her father were alone in the house the entire time. Su-yeon and Eun-joo were merely hallucinatory manifestations of Su-mi’s dissociative identity disorder. Throughout the film, Su-mi simultaneously switched personalities, acting as herself and Eun-joo. She hallucinated Su-yeon as a result of not being able to accept her death. In her “Eun-joo” mode, Su-mi imagined scenarios where she impersonates Eun-joo “abusing Su-yeon” but in reality injures herself to act out these situations. The bloodied sack simply contains a porcelain doll.

The father and the real Eun-joo, a much different woman from the imaginary version, send Su-mi back to the mental institution. That night, Eun-joo hears footsteps in Su-yeon’s old bedroom. Simultaneously, Su-mi hears a mysterious whistling and recognizes it as Su-yeon – this contrasts her delusion of Su-yeon, who was unable to whistle, thereby confirming that the one who whistled is the real ghost of Su-yeon. Su-yeon’s real ghost crawls out of the closet and kills Eun-joo, finally getting her revenge. Su-mi smiles, appearing to have finally found peace.

Flashbacks reveal the day that led Su-mi to be institutionalized. Her father and Eun-joo, who was still the nurse of their mother at the time, arrive home, announcing their engagement. This upsets the sisters and Su-yeon discovers that their mother hanged herself in Su-yeon’s closet, depressed by the news. She attempts to revive her mother, causing the closet to collapse on top of her and slowly crush her to death. Eun-joo walks in and is about to save Su-yeon but encounters Su-mi, who engages in a heated confrontation with her. Angry at Su-mi’s insults, Eun-joo decides to leave Su-yeon to die and tells Su-mi that she’ll “regret this moment.” Su-mi leaves the house, unaware of both her sister and her mother’s conditions.

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YmCIp4qlGg&list=PLcGoUMssSuQ62iqYmXe_aPJJhUH-BqBtY

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    This really put my perspective together for what is to come in next week’s episodes. Now I shall go and dream nice things related to IOTNBO. Thanks a lot dear for your posts about all he fairy tales/episode themes.

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    A Tale of Two Sisters is such a haunting film. I always get chills at the moment when the real stepmother is shown and we see that Sumi has been been pretty much alone the whole time. It is both a frightening and deeply sad story.

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      I’m not into horror films but the Koreans are so good at making them.

      I post it because I’m not sure if the writer is going with the original tale or the story from the movie since the titles are different.

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        Yes, I call this a horror film with depth and emotional weight. There was a English-language remake of the film, but it doesn’t compare.

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    @kiara. May I ask how you know what the theme of the episodes will be? Are you checking the drama network’s site? Thanks!

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    I’ve always wanted to watch the movie but i’m too scared!

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      It does have frightening moments–and two particularly spine-tingling scenes–but I think that it is more sad than anything else.

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    This film is really good.

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