Hello, my name is Jee-woon Kim.
Today, we have the two sisters of the movie.
Soo-jung Im, the protagonist of the movie.
Hello, my name is Soo-jung Im.
And the younger sister, Geun-young Moon.
Hello, my name is Geun-young Moon.
- Don't laugh. - Okay.
I have to admit that
the commentary with the cinematographer
and the lighting director was a little stuffy.
Today, it's much nicer,
because I'm here with two pretty actresses.
The movie looks much brighter.
It's much nicer.
'Janghwa' means rose, and 'Hongryun' means lotus.
That's why we're showing William Morris's flower wallpaper.
The flowers of the wallpaper are blowing in the wind.
That was the idea for the opening sequence.
We can hear the sound of the door opening.
Then we see the ripple,
which symbolises the impression of the film.
The character is washing his hands.
Cleansing the tainted past.
Erasing the bad memory.
This scene emphasises that aspect.
Su-mi's struggle.
But it's not just Su-mi.
It's everyone in the family.
Everybody wants to cleanse their minds.
They want to heal their wounds.
I wanted to show that with the scene,
where the doctor washes his hands in the clean water.
We can feel the tension here.
To deliver the tension and achieve this white hue,
we didn't use much colour.
The sound was used to emphasise
the feeling of this desolate space.
This desolate space could be seen as the mind of the character.
Su-mi's mind.
The sounds are echoing.
The dreariness of the space is emphasised by that.
What did you feel when you were acting in this scene?
Hmm.
He's asking these questions...
...and I really couldn't speak.
Well, there was no dialogue.
I guess you're right.
I'll try to explain this scene.
In this opening scene,
the doctor is asking about the patient's history.
The reason for the hospitalisation.
The doctor is asking many questions. But she cannot answer them.
The story behind her trauma.
This scene is hinting at what's going to happen.
That's what the scene is about.
Can you tell me about that day?
What happened that day?
You should be able to remember it clearly.
Do you like your acting here?
I'm not sure even now.
Even now.
You approved the scene. But I wasn't sure.
I wasn't sure if that was appropriate. I still don't know.
You can't talk like that in the commentary!
As I said before,
this scene shows something about her.
Su-mi.
She must have experienced something tragic.
She has a mystery.
I wanted the audience to recognise that.
The dreariness and the emptiness
of the opening scene
is instantly replaced by this scene.
Nice music. Beautiful scenery.
Scenery?
Landscape.
Scenery means landscape.
I didn't know that.
I want to go back.
Me, too.
- Let's go there sometime. - Yes.
The set was supposed to be demolished.
The county office decided to preserve it.
We can go there any time and see the set.
I think it will look worn-out.
That will make me sad.
The camera functions as a point of view in this shot.
Before Kab-su Kim approaches the car...
...and says this line, it felt like there was nobody in the car.
That's how it is shown.
Again, the music.
A cheerful waltz changes to
something more sad.
It's telling the sad destiny of the two sisters.
I wanted to express that.
When we go there next time, I'll be behaving just like that.
The two of you?
Just me, I guess.
That's what I thought.
I don't know if the ground cherries are still there.
Was that the first time you'd seen and tasted them?
Yes.
How was the taste?
Sour.
Bitter.
I wasn't sure if I could eat them.
I ate them a lot when I was a kid.
They were tasty.
In this scene, Su-mi is looking at things.
The spaces in the film all have their own stories.
The spaces.
Through the film,
the stories of the spaces...
...and the circumstances are told.
We are showing the spaces before the story unfolds.
- This scene is so pretty, isn't it? - Yes.
When we were shooting this...
...we had to shoot many times.
I couldn't run because I was exhausted.
Geun-young is actually dragging me in this scene.
That's the truth.
I realised that,
Geun-young's sheer power.
When we weren't shooting,
Geun-young was running around the mountain and fields.
That's right.
When we were shooting this,
the water looked scary.
The water was really black.
But in this shot,
it's not scary.
It was cold back then.
It was cold.
You had red rashes, similar to
an allergic reaction,
on your legs.
The wind was blowing hard on the day, as you know.
The crew were telling me, it's going to rain.
Soo-jung and I wanted the rain.
- So you could skip the shoot? - It was too cold.
We shot it in cold weather,
but it really looks warm on the screen.
Geun-young told me that was fascinating.
Not exactly fascinating.
Is that unfair?
Su-mi senses her sister's fatal destiny
by reading her palms.
It's an ominous scene.
That looks like two people's legs. Not just one of you.
They look like one person's legs to me.
Lots of people ask this.
Many people thought that.
But one leg is thick, and the other is slim.
The beautiful and warm introduction.
This beautiful scene changes to a nightmare
as the two sisters enter the house.
There is an extreme difference between them.
Nightmarish things happen after the sisters come in.
Nightmarish memories emerge repeatedly.
This scene gives a hint of what's going to happen.
A sinister atmosphere arises.
It's a grotesque image.
Eun-ju wasn't doing anything significant.
She walks down the dark and long corridor
as she approaches the two sisters.
To give an element of surprise, the corridor was partially lit.
We wanted to portray Eun-ju's character
with this lighting technique.
The two sisters are facing Eun-ju for the first time.
What did you feel?
I wanted to leave the place as soon as possible.
- How about you, Geun-young? - I was scared.
But it was funny, too.
Eun-ju does her line when she walks down the corridor.
I laughed a little.
That's what makes Jeong-a Yeom unique.
An ironic way of acting.
She is grotesque and frightening.
She is also comical and humorous.
I'm preparing a special dinner.
But you have to give me some time.
There's a lot to prepare.
Some of the audience must have sensed something was wrong here.
The sisters come up to the first floor and Su-mi enters her room.
She goes into the room alone without any explanation.
And she looks around her room.
I believe some of the audience will think this is strange.
There were many questions about this scene.
"Why does she set the time to 2:34?"
Some people asked that.
I don't think that's important.
With this stopped clock,
we wanted to show the shadow of death.
We wanted to show the force of death.
Su-mi wants to revert to the past.
She is trying to reclaim the happy memories.
An obsession with time.
I wanted to do show that, too.
That could be her mother's time of death.
Maybe Su-mi wants to go back to that time.
The action could symbolise that.
Maybe it's Su-yeon's time of death.
We can see two identical diaries and two identical notebooks.
The reason why is not revealed here.
All of the secrets are revealed at the end...
...the viewers realise
Su-mi's multiple personalities were doing the same actions.
We used identical diaries, notebooks and clothes
to show her symptoms.
The shot with Eun-ju walking down the stairs
overlaps the previous shot.
Some may think, "Why is she walking down the stairs?"
The audience realises that Eun-ju
and Su-mi were the same person at the end.
We planted evidence, which hints at the reality.
That's why this scene is here.
Also, this tracking shot
shows the ground floor and the second floor.
The corridor, the parents' bedroom,
the bathroom and the front area of the dining room.
With this shot,
we showed the structure of the space.
And it also shows the set is not incomplete.
The set is like a whole house.
I wanted to show that to the audience.
That's why the tracking shot is used.
There is a reason why we built the whole thing.
This was a difficult job for the crew,
especially for the art team and the lighting team.
Very difficult.
On this set, the performers can maintain their emotion and movement.
The emotion doesn't get interrupted. They can act in a continuous flow.
We knew it wasn't an easy job.
But that's why we made the ground floor
and first floor like a real house.
That's the reason.
That's the reason why we made this extravagant set.
- Didn't it help your acting? - Yes.
Everyone gathered around the table for dinner on the first evening.
They were eating in this strange atmosphere.
We can see that
this family doesn't have the usual emotional connection
between them.
I wanted to convey that absence
in this dull dinner time.
Eun-ju wants to make a cheerful atmosphere.
She really tries hard.
Kab-su Kim is acting strange.
Su-mi, Su-yeon and Eun-ju are present.
Kab-su Kim confessed that he didn't know
where to put the pills.
I remember that.
Did you prepare your father's undergarments?
Thanks, but that's my job.
Cleaning my room is my job. Why did you touch my stuff?
That's how it was before.
So the same clothes were hanging there before?
That's awkward.
- Why did you have that expression? - Yes?
The expression.
I was eating my food and the quarrel was annoying me.
You wanted them to stop.
You were just interested in the food.
- I'm not having dinner with him. - What?
I'm not having dinner with that guy.
He's not some guy, he's your uncle.
It's the first day, so let's give it a rest.
- And you? - Yes?
Aren't you going to follow her?
How do you come up with that hesitant expression?
You are never like that.
With A Tale of Two Sisters,
I found a new self inside me.
A hidden self.
Vulnerable self?
Did that woman say something to you?
If she ever gets on your case, then tell me.
And don't ignore it like before. Okay?
"And don't ignore it like before."
This could be an important line.
In the epilogue,
Su-yeon is harassed by the stepmother.
That scene was deleted.
There is something between Su-yeon...
...and Eun-ju.
There is friction. Su-yeon is being harassed.
The dialogue hints at this.
- You did the same thing, right? - Yes.
You repeated it after you saw this footage, right?
Yes.
I watched it several times.
Su-mi is doing all this. What do you think about that?
That's Su-mi in the bed.
I feel sorry for the father.
I think the father had the toughest time.
The daughter is acting like the mother.
He had to hug her. He had to put her to sleep.
- As if the daughter's his wife? - Yes.
An unthinkable thing to do.
Families who have to deal with
someone who has multiple personalities
really have to do that.
When one personality surfaces,
the family have to accept it.
When the main personality cannot cope with reality,
they make other personalities.
The personality changes
because he or she is mentally wounded.
The new personality doesn't know the wound.
It doesn't accept the problem.
So the family members have to adapt to it.
The family members are thrown into a dilemma.
Su-yeon is running around the house.
Did you two feel scared, when you watched this film?
Yes.
More than I expected.
How about Soo-jung?
I felt tense but not scared.
But Su-mi's nightmare in the day was really scary.
- The ghost? - Yes.
I wasn't in any scene with ghosts.
I didn't do scary scenes.
I didn't know the movie was so scary.
Of course, scenes with you in them are fun.
But is it fun when you watch the scenes without you?
Yes.
Which scenes were fun, from the ones without you?
- From the ones without me? - Yes.
They weren't funny. They were scary.
- The scenes with ghosts? - Yes.
The scene where Su-mi and Eun-ju fight.
As for me,
I wanted to watch all the scenes, even if I wasn't in them.
But I couldn't watch the scene
where Su-yeon is being attacked by the stepmother.
When Su-yeon is dragged into the wardrobe by the stepmother.
I couldn't watch them acting on the set.
It was really heartbreaking to watch that scene.
Really.
It was too miserable.
That's okay, Soo-jung.
- Have you acted scared before? - No.
Was it difficult?
It was difficult.
You have to imagine that this fake situation is real.
This is the same for any kind of acting,
but you have to express extreme emotions.
Was it difficult because of this?
Yes.
Soo-jung really loved this scene.
- This scene, right? - That's right.
As you said in the interview,
from this scene on,
Geun-young really felt like a little sister.
I guess we can feel that here.
- That was the interview. - Yes.
I had this feeling in another scene.
After she checks things, Su-mi tells her sister not to worry.
Before she taps her back, Su-mi tells Su-yeon
that she will protect her.
We had to re-shoot
that scene many times.
But we both felt good. How was it for you, Geun-young?
Even though we had to do it many times, it wasn't boring, was it?
It wasn't tiring.
We were really immersed in it.
It was really like that.
We felt something together as actresses.
It was a difficult job for the crew,
but they were immersed in it, too.
It was an amazing feeling.
That relies on many conditions.
Physical strength, emotion and many other things.
I know physical strength is very important.
Physical strength or energy is important.
But as you said in the interview,
the mind fills up with emotion.
Even if the energy is drained.
Even if it is really stressful.
But something fills up in the mind.
Then you can do something you couldn't do ordinarily.
Extraordinary acting happens.
Then you can act with intense concentration.
There is another reason why the scene wasn't hard to repeat.
My body was cold, but Geun-young's body was warm.
And the set was really cold.
It was really warm holding her.
I really liked it.
The scene helped Soo-jung to concentrate on the role.
The scene gave her the motivation.
Su-mi's love, caring and longing for her little sister.
The heartbreaking love.
This state of mind. This emotion.
Soo-jung could feel this emotion through that scene.
The crew and I loved shooting the scene.
We loved it. The scene comes right after this.
You're only drinking a little.
No, I really drank a lot.
That's not much at all.
I drank a lot.
- Including other shots, right? - No, I'm talking about this shot.
But there is so much left.
I don't know why.
After the release of the film, someone asked me...
"She drank a lot. But why is so much water left?"
I didn't notice it before. Even when I was editing.
Did you drink in small gulps?
No, I drank in big gulps.
I cannot understand.
What is that?
That's the entrails of a fish.
Entrails and a head.
Su-mi opened the package because she didn't know what was inside.
That means Eun-ju placed the package in the fridge.
In this scene,
the viewers notice Eun-ju's strangeness.
Her abnormal behaviour.
The scene was included to show her weirdness.
And she is watching the blank TV.
She is staring at the blank screen.
The audience sense Eun-ju's strangeness with these scenes.
The weird behaviour.
- You were talking about this, right? - Yes.
Even the colour of the bedclothes has an influence.
Yes, the colour of the bedclothes. The colour of your pyjamas.
And the music.
And the dialogue.
The expression on your faces.
All of these things contributed to the scene.
At that moment,
I wished I had this big sister in real life.
Don't you have a big sister?
No, I have a little sister.
Why not do the same thing to your little sister?
I think I should.
Are you close to your sister?
We've got closer recently.
Is that so?
Because she was a baby,
there was a communication problem.
Now she has grown a little,
so...
...we can speak to each other.
In this morning scene,
Mu-hyun had escaped from Eun-ju's bed,
and he was sleeping alone in the study.
There is something wrong with this couple.
I wanted to show this relationship to the audience.
At last, the scary scene.
In the dream, for a brief moment,
Su-mi has a vision of Su-yeon's death.
A very brief moment.
The hand.
I was scared even when we were shooting the scene.
Your voice is scarier.
The crying sound was recorded by me.
I'm doing everything.
It comes very slowly.
Because of that, it stuck in my memory.
I can't erase the ghost from my mind.
I wanted to show it to the audience.
There was a reason for this.
When ghosts appear in horror movies,
the revelation of the identity
and the timing of the approach
look very formulaic.
I wanted to avoid the obvious. I wanted to bypass expectations.
The ghost coming from a certain area. The ghost speeding up suddenly.
I wanted to slow down the process.
I wanted to hold the audience's expectations.
I tried to maximise the scariness with this technique.
The mother ghost had a hard time doing it.
Yes, it was a difficult job.
And we had to shoot the scene numerous times.
The intensity of
the horror of the scene is the strongest in this film.
This scene had to be the most frightening scene in the whole film.
We had to shoot it until it was perfect.
We had a hard time shooting it.
Geun-young was sleeping when we were shooting this.
You are right.
Geun-young was really sleeping in the bed.
It was so comfortable.
I was deep in the acting.
You sleep even if it's uncomfortable.
You have three modes.
Run
or sleep
or eat.
Are you awake?
Yes.
- Can I come in? - No.
Come down and eat.
In this scene everybody laughed
when the father asked if he could come in.
I never watched the movie in the cinema.
I heard that lots of people laughed here.
The father is little pathetic.
Yes, his role is pathetic.
I want to see the father.
You will see him at the Pusan International Film Festival.
But I'm not sure about his schedule.
I don't think your friends will believe that these are your legs.
I was worried a lot at first.
When you were shooting this?
Yes - I don't know if they had forgotten it
or intentionally avoided it,
but nobody talks about that scene.
That's because people don't think those are your legs.
Maybe.
What do you think of the result?
- The result? - Yes.
It was awkward.
Do they look pretty?
The viewers won't see you nodding. You have to say it.
You were worried because the legs could have looked ugly.
Am I right?
Yes.
I think the legs looked pretty enough.
Thank you, cinematographer.
Hey, I coached him on how to shoot your legs.
That's so funny.
This scene
is linked with the scene where Su-mi realises
she is having a period, too.
All three are having their periods.
This set up could be one of the clues.
It's a code.
This is one of the clues to reveal the secret of the film.
- Soo-jung, those are your legs? - Yes.
Some critics said,
"The director has a leg fetish."
Some pointed that out.
But in horror movies,
actually,
the camera begins to shoot from the legs and goes up.
Tracking technique and the movement of the camera.
These techniques are commonly used in horror movies.
And this is a menstruation scene.
Horror movies and sexuality have a close relationship.
You can see
this connection in most horror movies.
They are not separable.
- I can't forget this scene. - Why is that?
It wasn't suppose to be this scene.
- Was this the third try? - Yes, it was.
We've shot it on the swings before this.
- Geun-young, you can't whistle? - No, I can't.
Soo-jung's good at it.
You're really good.
Dong-jin Lee, of the Josunilbo newspaper,
loves movies.
A journalist.
He was really impressed by this scene.
In what way?
I don't really know.
I don't know.
I'm not sure.
I think he said this was really a sad scene.
"The scene is both sad and beautiful." That's what he said.
It stuck in his memory.
The composition of this shot
excludes Su-yeon.
Only Su-mi and the father are present.
Some people may notice the absence of Su-yeon.
Some may notice it.
What was hard in the swing scene, Su-yeon?
- The swing scene? - Yes.
I didn't know it when we were shooting,
but after I watched the scene...
...my acting looked so awkward.
Maybe the situation I gave you
in the swing scene was too difficult to follow.
I believe everyone felt that.
The father and Soo-jung, too.
And of course, Geun-young.
Ah, the swing scene...
Sometimes, some scenes are just impossible to do.
There was one in each of my films.
The situation in the swing scene.
That was the dead end in this movie.
As in the epilogue,
Su-mi comes here without Su-yeon.
Su-mi runs out from the house and looks back in the epilogue.
This scene symbolises that event in the epilogue.
I love this scene.
Why?
Was there something important?
You only look at the screen when you are on it.
That's not true.
In one of the shots that wasn't used here,
the bird flew out of the cage
and landed on the ground.
- Why did you look at the bird? - Huh?
The bird flew out.
The bird wasn't in the frame.
But you were looking at the bird flying out and landing on the ground.
Your eyes just followed it.
A lot of birds escaped the cage when we shot that scene.
An eagle caught one of the escapees.
This is when Su-yeon was younger.
I didn't realise it when we were taking these.
I only realised it after I watched the movie.
The fact that Su-yeon died.
I thought there was nothing that suggested her death.
If you look carefully, the mother and I are both present
in one of the photos.
I realised that photo was the hint.
What are you doing?
You scared me.
When did you come in?
- Did you go to the warehouse? - Yeah.
We recorded this again on the Automatic Dialogue Recording.
The dialogue for this scene was badly written.
Su-yeon talks like a bully.
It was a lot of fun doing this scene.
I loved this scene with Geun-young.
It was like we were really looking at the mother's stuff.
Actually, in this scene, we began shooting without telling you guys.
Is that true?
- You both didn't know that, did you? - No.
We shot you when you two were talking and searching the box.
The two of you talking looked like acting,
but very natural, without my direction.
Mr Lee and I pretended to check the camera,
and started shooting.
Nobody else knew.
Can I watch that?
I don't think we developed that part. I'm not sure.
I'll ask.
I thought you two realised in the end.
No, we didn't know.
The fake scar was amazing.
It looked so real.
She did this, huh?
Su-yeon was harassed by the stepmother when she was alive.
We can see that in the epilogue.
Su-mi is reliving the memory here.
That's the reason behind this.
Have you done that kind of acting before?
I don't even scream in real life.
To be honest, I was worried
when I was doing the scene.
It was difficult.
Once I did it, it was nothing.
Yes, it's nothing.
There's this Japanese theatre group,
and they do acting exercises in extreme circumstances.
They give out their emotions in these environments.
For example, they get inside a box and scream.
Or try to say something to the person
on the other side of a rail track
when the train is passing by.
That kind of thing.
Dramatic performance.
Because of civilization...
because of all these machines and automation,
the human instinct is dying out.
Dramatic performance reclaims this.
That's what stage acting is about.
The use of telephones, the use of mobile phones.
Because of this, we don't need to shout.
The voice gets quieter. The vocal chords get weaker.
Because of the use of modern devices,
human organs weaken.
Acting on stage gives back the basic powers
human beings had before.
When you do Greek tragedies,
there is a chorus,
but you also have to shout out in a big theatre.
The first try was perfect. But we did it again, anyway.
I thought you were going to hurt your hand.
I think it was great. Did your hand hurt?
No. Strangely, it didn't hurt.
I think that was because you were immersed in the situation.
I guess that's why you weren't reluctant
to hit those with your hand.
Because of this,
you didn't feel the pain.
That's what I think.
- Get off me! - What's wrong with you?
Are you that clueless?
Don't touch me with those filthy hands!
Su-mi, listen to me.
I don't want to hear it. You're the same.
That's not true, you've misunderstood.
You're not even accepting all this.
How did this feel to you?
After the shoot,
the cinematographer and I were on our way home
and we discussed this scene.
Mr Lee told me he loved shooting this scene.
Su-mi's emotion.
The shadow on Su-mi's face.
The dialogue.
It's a clash of emotions.
We could feel the energy of the scene.
What did you think, Soo-jung?
It was a difficult scene.
Most scenes in the movie were difficult.
But here, there is the explosion of emotions.
I also cried a lot.
Not just in the explosive moments.
Su-mi cools down.
You get really calm here.
Those moments. Like this one.
That was a good performance.
The father helped me a lot
when we were doing the scene.
He helped me maintain the emotion.
Very helpful.
With the eerie sound, the first visitors come to the house.
The brother-in-law's wife, Seung-bi Lee...
...received the award for best new actress...
...for the play called Barber Bong-gu Bak.
Her acting was superb.
The dinner scene took days to shoot.
I heard that she maintained
that energetic performance for all those days.
Because she was trained on stage,
she could maintain that degree of performance.
No problem for her.
And Seung-bi Lee herself
was full of energy.
This scene was hard for Jeong-a Yeom.
She had to lead the scene all alone.
And she had to have fun by herself.
Anyway, she was great.
But the actress is a little like that.
She claps and laughs at the same time.
When Jeong-a Yeom's friends and acquaintances watched this scene,
they knew she was just acting herself.
I was a little unhappy when I watched this in the cinema.
I mean,
I know what's going on in the film.
Maybe that's why.
This is a very frightening scene.
The audience were laughing at this scene.
I was also shocked by the response.
It was a little annoying.
But it is funny.
It feels different when you know what's happening.
People lower their guards in this scene,
and they confront the shocking moment.
Other things starts to happen.
Maybe they felt the later scenes were scarier.
Some critics and directors said
this sequence feels like
the signature style of Jee-woon Kim.
Things happen very fast, then it suddenly snaps.
Confusing the audience.
Those things.
The director of Goosebumps, Jong-chan Yoon,
talks about this scene sincerely.
People liked the scene.
Jeong-a Yeom's facial expression changes slightly here.
I wanted the audience to see these small changes
and shudder in fear.
Here she says, "Are you crazy?"
People laughed at that, too.
Well, she's the one who's crazy.
I guess they laughed because the answer was unexpected.
You know what's happening only after you watch the whole movie.
After that,
some parts of the movie get more frightening.
Scarier.
Sadder.
That's how this film is structured.
This movie is progressed by memory.
You can see how the memory affects the girl.
How Su-mi remembers things.
That's one way of watching.
As you know, we did rehearsals for this.
And I brought Seung-bi Lee to the rehearsals.
At that time, I had something in mind.
Geun-young and Soo-jung both needed something for the film.
At some point, you needed to do explosive acting.
I thought you two didn't have experience of that.
I wanted to show a model for that kind of performance.
When we did training camp,
only the four main characters were there.
Seung-bi Lee came one time,
and showed you the frenzied acting.
I wanted her acting to be a model for you two,
a reference.
That was my intention.
I think it helped.
That's why I brought her to our training camp.
It felt uncomfortable at first.
I tried to act cute
before watching her performance.
But after I watched Seung-bi Lee,
I felt something.
That is
what I wanted you to feel.
I think Seung-bi Lee...
...helped you two
immensely.
She taught me a lot.
What do you remember from her lessons?
When I was locked in the wardrobe,
I go into a frenzy, too.
Seung-bi Lee taught me the small details
on how to do that in the wardrobe.
My acting wasn't good enough.
Ah, you were prepared.
Her acting was scary and powerful.
Go to bed.
Eun-ju is left alone.
She is sensing something strange.
Something is going to happen.
People were horrified by this scene.
They couldn't look under the sink.
We know when it's going to come out.
But it feels like it's never coming out.
That's what people told me.
I was scared, too.
Horror movies are always like that.
You know when it's going to be scary.
And you still get scared when it happens.
That's the pleasure of watching horror movies.
In this shot,
we can hear Eun-ju's heavy breathing.
The sound of the small door.
These sounds emphasise the fear and tension.
That's the function of the sounds.
Because of the timing, we had to shoot this several times.
We had to do this scene several times.
We didn't split it into cuts.
The ghost is present in the spot
where it wasn't sitting before.
It was more difficult to shoot than we expected.
The timing.
And
she had to move her head after the signal.
The young actress...
...had to sit there very carefully.
The timing...
...was difficult to match.
The character is
in an unstable state of mind right now.
She is caught in fear.
Those subtle feelings.
She managed to express them very well.
The story of the hairpin is in one of the deleted scenes.
Su-yeon...
...is wearing...
You are surprised.
Su-yeon was wearing the hairpin in the deleted scene.
It was one of the memories.
Surprising scenes are surprising even when you watch them again,
because of the sound effects.
In that scene,
she was holding the hairpin for a long time.
Ordinarily, the hand comes out from the dark as soon as you hold it.
It didn't come out for a long time.
So you begin to feel safe. Then the hand comes out.
I changed the tempo
of the conventional horror movie tricks.
It's just like you said.
The mother ghost was like that.
The scene before this was like that.
And the brother-in-law's wife
has a fit after she senses something strange.
The thing comes out only when she talks about it.
I tried to avoid what the audience expected
and emphasise the shock and horror.
I tried to strengthen the effects.
Slightly different timing.
The change of the timing.
This scene was memorable, too.
The big contrast of colours
emphasises the character's fear and the horrifying atmosphere.
Strong colours...
...were used for those reasons in this scene.
I composed and played the music in this scene.
I'm constantly bragging in this commentary.
I guess the music director didn't like it.
You did it because it was fun, didn't you?
He wanted to take it out because it was low quality.
But I forced him to put it in.
This is my only opus.
Let's listen to the masterpiece I made.
She looks like a doll.
Because of the passionate performance by Jeong-a Yeom,
the set was shaking.
We had to shoot it several times.
I want to take back what I said.
I guess we can't count that as musical composition or performance.
I just pressed a few keys.
Geun-young's acting is excellent in this scene.
Can you explain that?
Geun-young said she couldn't scream.
She was really worried.
Her scream was great when Eun-ju was dragging her.
It felt really sad.
For actors and actresses,
let's say you give a 70% performance when you start out.
It's really hard to go over 80%.
It's just an example. I know it's too simplistic.
But if you already have experienced
this explosion of emotion, you can control it.
Then it's easy to give 80%.
Many actors and actresses find it hard to do this.
It feels awkward, scary and difficult.
So they think,
"I'll give 70% first. I'll get the 10% later."
As Geun-young said before, once you do it,
it gets easier.
The walls surround you.
It's important to break the walls instantly.
Many people ask me,
"Isn't it awkward to cry in front of lots of people?"
To be honest, it is awkward.
To me, this is important.
If I get along with the crew well,
the awkwardness disappears.
That's what I think.
It could be a problem, if you are too friendly with the crew.
- Not until now. - Not until now?
It's a very sad scene.
But it was really funny, when we were shooting.
I went to sleep. I couldn't watch and laugh.
This was really hard for Jeong-a Yeom.
Don't you feel sorry for Jeong-a, Geun-young?
Yes, I do.
I feel really sorry,
because she thought
I wouldn't eat any meals, to lighten her burden.
That was my original plan.
I couldn't execute the plan.
But she thought I did.
She was proud of it.
Because she could finish the scene?
No. She thought I did her a favour.
What do you think about the music in this scene?
It was too sad for me.
Me, too.
Actually, I feel sad right now.
It was agonising to watch this.
I wanted to rescue her.
It's no use crying.
Say that you're sorry and beg for forgiveness!
I'm sorry.
What's that?
Say it properly.
I'm sorry.
I'll ask you once more.
Putting the music in this scene
was decided at the last moment.
At first...
...the opinion of the crew and the parties concerned
were split into half.
The music feels very strange in this scene.
It's a violent scene.
It's a cruel scene.
And putting a sad tune in it...
...could make it feel unbalanced.
Many people opposed it.
As you know,
this music is included in the end scene, where Su-mi comes out.
When I heard the music there,
it's not a sad situation.
But it's sad, because the audience knows what's happening.
You are right.
The melody sticks in the mind of the viewers,
and it touches the emotions.
Because of the music,
the scene feels much sadder.
The viewers remember the music was played before.
Before?
Before. The previous scene.
People remember it was sad in that scene.
When they hear the music again, it suddenly feels sad again.
When you were in the wardrobe,
wasn't it easy to cry?
- Yes. - That's what I thought.
I used to sleep in the wardrobe when I was a little kid.
I liked it...
...because I went in by myself.
I was forced inside this time.
It hurt my feelings.
Su-yeon, I'm sorry.
I didn't hear you.
This scene suggests what happened before.
The tragedy.
What Su-mi really wanted to do.
What she wanted to tell Su-yeon.
Through this action,
she wants to heal the wounds.
She wants to be forgiven.
This is a ritual.
Through this role-playing...
...Su-mi says what she wanted to tell Su-yeon.
"I didn't hear you. I'm sorry."
She is telling her
that she will be there if this kind of thing happens again.
Through her
multiple personalities...
...Su-mi re-enacts the other person's actions.
In this re-enactment,
she begs
forgiveness for her sin.
She says things she couldn't say in this role-playing.
It's a story of her mind.
Su-mi's actions are based on those desires.
It is hard to see on the DVD.
I can't see it in this monitor.
I like the colour in this scene.
Tell me why you've acted so weird since you got here.
You really don't know?
Don't know what? What is it?
What that woman is doing to us!
So tell me what has she done?
She keeps harassing Su-yeon.
What?
DVD looks different on every monitor.
I only had to think about a few cinema screens before.
DVD is different.
DVD colour and quality is better than before.
But I have to think about all the monitors people have.
Su-yeon, you tell Dad.
Stop crying, and tell him now.
- Tell him! - Please stop!
Su-yeon is dead.
What?
I can't forget Geun-young's expression here.
I sometimes think of it.
You are crying again.
How long will you keep this up?
It's not true, Su-yeon.
Now Su-yeon realises
she is not a living person.
She is not a person who is loved by the family.
She is not loved as a living person. She is a dead being.
She realises that.
One of the many secrets of the family
is revealed in the scene.
- Stop crying, Geun-young. - Okay.
In this scene...
...what did you feel, Geun-young?
- Me? - Yes.
I'm not sure.
Even if you are not sure,
I think you must have felt something there.
To show that kind of emotion,
to express that emotion...
...you have to take your real emotion or will and apply it.
It was very disturbing
from the beginning of the shooting
of the scene.
When he says Su-yeon's dead...
...I couldn't breathe.
You already knew the lines.
- Did it feel like that? - Yes.
The situation felt real.
WILL BE BACK IN THE AFTERNOON. MAKE SURE YOU LOCK UP.
Su-yeon!
This scene was creepy.
Sad in a way.
We don't know where it's coming from,
but we can hear Su-yeon's voice.
Su-yeon is following Su-mi. That could be tormenting.
We had to shoot this again because of the accident.
It was hard to do it right again, wasn't it?
Yes, it was.
Why do you think so?
I don't know.
Well...
The emotion,
as you said before,
didn't feel the same.
Yes, it's similar to a play.
When we perform in a play,
this happens.
If the performance was good yesterday,
it's bad today.
That's because
we remember the time when we were good.
We try to imitate that moment, but the body doesn't follow.
Theatrical performance is not about...
...doing what you did yesterday.
You are doing a new performance every time.
New frame of mind, new emotions.
It was always bad, when we were good the day before.
We think about yesterday's good performance.
We have to concentrate on the new situation.
But the concentration is divided.
We can't focus our whole attention on the given day.
I think that's what happened here.
And there were too many journalists.
It wasn't a good environment for acting.
After this shot...
...I really felt like the character.
I was in the situation.
I think so, too.
When I watched that...
...I felt weird.
It's just rubbish in the sack.
It felt like Geun-young.
It was the same feeling as hugging Geun-young in the other scenes.
Su-mi is unable to do anything here.
She cannot untie the knot of the sack.
She cannot get the thing in the sack.
We can see the true self of Su-mi.
Vulnerable.
She's powerless.
She is only capable of crying.
She just cries while fumbling with the sack.
Vulnerability.
That's what the scene is about.
Your acting portrayed it very well.
In this scene, Su-mi is travelling
between reality and fantasy.
This sequence was hard to perform for Soo-jung.
This was one of the hardest scenes to perform.
Although you did say all of them were hard.
I don't know why it was so hard.
It's always hard, when we are actually making it.
When you watch the final print, you can spot errors.
You think you could do better.
These are afterthoughts.
I guess it's different when you are actually acting.
This one shows how Su-mi is.
This character Su-mi,
is not an easy character.
It's not easy to play Su-mi.
What is Jeong-a mumbling about?
I don't know.
It's really incomprehensible.
The family is making her sick and tired.
I think she is saying, "Sick and tired."
This one looks very hard to do.
But it was really fun for both of us.
Everyone loved it.
The cinematographer liked it.
We thought it was going to be hard.
We didn't even have an action director.
You moved as we planned.
I have a theory.
The characters in the film.
The movement of the camera.
These things didn't go to the extreme.
The film went on very subtly. It never explodes.
It maintains the pace.
The cast and the crew,
they were excited about this.
Everyone was very tired
when we shot this scene.
Then everything exploded.
It was refreshing and fun.
I've shot lots of action scenes for Foul King.
This was piece of cake.
You two loved doing the action.
It was very physical.
Like games. Like sport.
You feel good when you play sport.
You feel energised.
That should be one of the reasons.
I felt something when I watched it.
If you think about it, that kind of scene
is not a pretty scene.
But she looked really pretty.
- Soo-jung? - Yes.
I thought, she is pretty whatever she does.
That's what I was thinking.
This scene shows Su-mi's...
...extreme agony.
This is a scene of self-reflection. She is talking to herself.
Because it's so painful,
she wants to end it all.
This is her last attempt to correct things.
Her feelings are all poured out in this scene.
That could be the reason why she looked pretty.
I mean, she's not really pretty.
These lines.
When she was saying the lines, we had shots of Jeong-a's face, too.
When I watched her face,
I secretly cried a lot behind the monitor.
Because this is Su-mi's life.
It just felt so heartbreaking.
That's not just Su-mi's story.
Everybody thinks about that once in a while.
- In their lives? - Yes.
Sure, I'll help you.
Let's end it here.
I thought about those things too.
There were things I regretted doing.
Things I don't want to repeat if I have another chance.
Why did it happen to me?
Why did I do that?
Why did I say that?
Why did I hurt that person?
Why did that person hurt me?
There are things...
There are memories and wounds you want to erase.
But you can't erase them.
These memories, like ghosts,
stick around you.
You're right.
I expressed this idea in a form of movie.
In A Tale of Two Sisters.
Maybe I could erase those memories,
but if the other person doesn't forget,
I'll have to remember them again.
Exactly.
- Those things. - That's what makes it scary.
There was this news item recently.
They were secondary school alumni.
One ignored the other when they were attending the school.
The ignored one visited the other after many years had past,
and she killed the other one.
She couldn't escape from the memory all her life.
She couldn't forget the insult she received in secondary school.
She graduated and went to college.
Many years passed, then she sought revenge.
It's a tragedy.
These things are scary.
I have another example.
One person remembers in this way.
But the other person remembers it in another way.
That is scary.
Remembering things as you want them to be.
Manipulated memory.
Please stop it.
Bad memories.
Memories you want to throw away.
Memories you want to erase.
They are like lighthouses.
When the light touches your eyes, it hurts.
The light rotates.
When you think you've forgotten, it comes again.
They wake you up in the middle of the night.
In your happiest moments,
they come back and surprise you.
They make you feel bad and sad.
It's difficult.
This film...
...presents this kind of memories as...
...a ghost or a hateful spirit.
Wasn't this scene fascinating?
I didn't know how complex this was to shoot
before watching the making of the film.
The Motion Control Camera operators
had not used the camera in a confined space before.
It was only used for outdoors.
The experts say this was the smallest space
the Motion Control Camera has been used in.
We used almost all of our energy when we were shooting this.
You were so exhausted, you didn't have to act exhausted.
Don't you get it yet?
You're having a hard time adjusting.
You still must be sick.
You promised not to bring up that wardrobe.
We got our periods on the same day.
Su-yeon is dead.
No, I don't remember.
Su-mi and Su-yeon got out of the car
in the earlier scene.
We can see that Su-mi alone came here.
This scene reveals what really happened.
Su-mi came out of the illusion.
This is the second shock.
The first shock was
the death of Su-yeon.
It was forbidden to talk about
Su-yeon's death in front of Su-mi.
That was the first shock for Su-mi.
That gave Su-mi an opportunity to have delusions.
Su-mi meets the real Eun-ju,
when she is wearing Eun-ju's personality.
Everything changes.
She wakes up to reality.
That's the second shock.
I don't think this was a surprise to the audience.
This was a shock for Su-mi.
That was my intention.
When I
was playing Su-yeon,
I sometimes thought, it would be great if I was alive.
You wanted to be alive?
Especially when Su-mi was crying.
I get it.
You felt sorry for her.
Su-mi and Su-yeon felt sorry for each other.
Su-yeon was sorry because she was dead.
Su-mi was sorry because she couldn't save Su-yeon.
I wanted to say, "Don't cry, Su-mi."
There is something strange about Eun-ju's dialogue.
Everything seemed to be resolved.
This scene suggests there is something else.
Su-mi is not finished yet.
The audience may think, "What's going on?"
Another mystery.
Su-mi, what's wrong? Let go.
Let go, Su-mi.
Please, stop it and let go.
I have a question.
The father.
The father never saw the ghost.
Does that mean he doesn't feel guilty?
It's a different form of guilt.
Su-mi is different.
Everyone in the family feels guilty.
Su-mi notices the ghost.
She senses the malicious behaviour.
That's because
her guilt feels much stronger.
I think Su-mi's soul is
more innocent, more vulnerable
and purer than the father's.
Her soul is more fragile.
It's easy to break.
That's what I think.
She couldn't cope with the world
like her father could.
The purity.
She retains the original purity of mankind.
Her soul wasn't tainted with foul matters.
She was shocked.
She was damaged.
She was thrown into this tragedy
at the most sensitive time of her life.
The father has been through all the storms of life.
He was hardened by them.
Unlike the father,
vulnerable Su-mi had to suffer the pain
with all of her mind, body and soul.
The epilogue was too short for me.
The images are prettier than in the other scenes.
When I watched the epilogue,
the epilogue is sad
and beautiful by itself.
Gang-ho Song visited the set and watched Geun-young acting.
In his usual voice,
he said, "You were good."
Su-yeon.
That running sound.
Who made it?
Su-yeon.
I mean, the real person.
We recorded your sound.
- Really? - Yes.
You're surprised.
- Are you sure? - I'm sure.
What's the matter?
- Is the sound too loud? - No.
There was a scene where you were running.
It's that sound.
That scene was hard for her.
There is a freezing machine in the room.
We set the room temperature to sub-zero.
People...
The crew had to move around the set.
Because of the heat from the bodies, the room temperature went up.
The lights have a high temperature.
When we turned on the lights, the temperature went up.
To show the breath, the temperature had to go down.
It was hard to maintain the temperature.
It was winter.
So, we tried to take apart the set and build it outside for shooting.
Some people ask about the meaning
behind the empty frames.
The absence of Geun-young... I'm sorry.
The absence of Su-yeon.
The absence of the family.
We wanted to show the absence
through the empty photograph frames.
The breath was the protagonist of this scene.
It was okay only when we could see the breath.
I miss the set.
Su-yeon's room?
Yes - when I first went there,
I thought the set was going to be like a real house.
Unfortunately, it wasn't.
In The Quiet Family, my first feature film,
we made sets for the inside and the outside.
We did everything in there.
What's this sound?
This is a baby crying.
We applied effects to that sound
to make it creepy.
This is not a didactic movie.
But Eun-ju is also suffering.
It's different from Su-mi's ritual.
But she is suffering.
The ghost appearing in front of Eun-ju
shows that she also has bad memories.
That memory is haunting her
in the form of a ghost.
I wanted to show that.
I think I really slept in this scene too.
You are really good at doing that kind of acting.
Sleeping or waking up.
Or eating.
The recollection scene is shot on a hand-held camera.
To give that uneasiness.
Shaking a little bit.
That kind of thing.
These three tracking shots
show where these people were, what they were doing
at the moment of the accident.
They didn't do anything to help.
They are the accomplices of this atrocity.
The tracking shots emphasise that.
I thought I scratched until I bled.
But I didn't bleed.
This scene...
...is one of the sad scenes.
Didn't you hear something?
Why would you come up here?
Dad's not here.
What do you mean by that?
Now you're trying to act like Mum.
Do me a favour. Stay out of our lives.
Can you get out of the way? I have to go.
You might regret this moment. Keep that in mind.
What can be worse than standing here with you?
After saying those words...
"What can be worse
"than standing here with you?"
These words become a curse to her.
I wanted to
show that tragic irony
in this scene.
I like this music.
When I first read the scenario,
I was curious
how this scene would come out.
I looked forward to seeing this on screen.
I thought really hard about deciding on the method of shooting this scene.
It wasn't supposed to be a long steadicam shot.
We were going to cut it.
Su-mi runs out of the house.
She ran out, but something didn't feel right.
Her emotions were about to explode.
She didn't know why, but it felt strangely sad.
She is now burdened
with this dark and heavy tragedy.
I wanted to show this in one long shot.
What do you think?
I like it. This is the most memorable shot.
Maybe because it's the last shot of the film.
It was the saddest.
The most tragic.
Soo-jung must have had
special feelings for this scene.
I still have them.
It's very strange.
I like it, because it has this lingering feeling.
This shot was tragic, too.
Come to think of it,
we showed the story in such a complex way
just to show this final shot.
That came to my mind after shooting this.
It's time to end
the story of Su-mi
and her family's tragic history.
I hope the DVD was fun to watch for the viewers.
I hope this was a fulfilling experience.
We have to say goodbye now.
Let's say goodbye, Soo-jung and Geun-young.
I'm curious how you liked us
doing the commentary for the film.
I guess you now know things you didn't know before.
Thank you very much for loving A Tale of Two Sisters.
Thank you for buying the DVD
and watching it to the end.
I'll try to do my best in my other films, too.
I really look forward to doing another commentary
for a better film in the near future.
Thank you for listening to the end.
Thank you.