Bunshinsaba

A.k.a. Ouija Board or Witch board
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0415689/
The writer/director Byeong-ki Ahn who have done the more well known horror movie (atleast in the western part of the world) Pon (Phone) - a review on that will come here on this blog soon. In Bunshinsaba a young girl; Yu Jin ( Se-eun Lee) are mobbed/bullied at school, so to stop that she and 2 other girls who are outcasts calls for demonic help.
In a dark classroom they call for a spirit; Yu Jin says to her two classmates; Are you afraid?
They both nod silently.

They have cast a spell on their tourmentors, whom basicly bursting out in flames. One by one the evil girls in school dies. Someone however is convinced that all of the killing has something to do with the past. A dark past of the small village.

One of many girls burns














Kim In Suk ( Yu-ri Lee) has been burned alive when she was young, pre to the actuall story to the movie - a new schoolteacher; Lee Eun-ju (Gyu-ri Kim) is like our ”guide” throughout the story.
I will explain what I mean by that in short terms. As for us, the wievers, we will have to be curious about what has happened and therefor a new villager is being placed in the village - uposite to for example nightmare on Elm street where allready existing neighbours try to cover up the truth about their dark past from the younger teens. In Bunshinsaba the viewers are as much as the teens in NOES, that is; unaware of the crimes in the past.
Miss Lee knows nothing, as much as the viewers, on what has happened before in the village. The people living in the village however tremble in fear of the name Kim In Suk. So when Miss Lee is starting her day and reading up the names of the girls in class, she stumble upon a name, the girls panic.

Is Kim In Suk prescent?














Ho-Kyeong (Jeong-yun Choi) is a medium who will try to find out why so many of the girls put plastic bags over their heads and let themself on fire. Kyeong casts Yu Jin under a pshyciatric spell as she tries to solve her mystery.
The truth that she and the rest of us will find may scare some, some will find this an “original rip-off” to Nightmare on Elm street.

Yu Jin













To be perfectly fair, I love ghost movies from asia, so this one should definitelly suit me. On the minus account, it is a rip off, in some way, to Nightmare on Elm street.
However it feels original, smart and deep enough to make it on its own.
The acting is at some points solid and in some scenes above solid/average.

The thing that makes this movie enjoyable is ofcourse the solid background to the ghosts deeds and the villagers desire to cover up certain things.
It also shows that the ghost isn´t necessarily evil, it may aswell be the humans that are bad.

Come on baby light my fire













If you are into “the newer wave” of ghost movies from asia, Bunshinsaba is a movie for you.
If you by any means have some doubts about asian ghost movies being all the same; girl with long black hair etc you will not like this.
Bunshinsaba gives “away” the actuall doers of the crimes rather quickly, it focus mostly thereafter on developing the caracthers as somehow real humans with dept.
If it works as a whole?
I would say it tries and succeed in some points; the ghost/demon and its desire for revenge becomes more human then scary (allthough humans are basicly more scary then ghosts are, my own reflections).
Bunshinsaba reminds me, not only on Nightmare on Elm street - for some various reasons wich I wont give away - but also reminds me about other movies in the genre.

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You wanted it. I´m not leaving.
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I saw that thing around you.
What was it?
...A ghost.
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Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmLrRnag9js

Trivia
The korean word Bunshinsaba means abacadabra, wich is the spell to awake/cast demons into our world.

Yu Jin is possessed