The blockbuster success of South Korean horror Exhuma came as a surprise to many, not least its writer and director Jang Jae-hyun.
“I want to know why,” says the filmmaker with complete sincerity. “I wrote it during the pandemic when it seemed like theatres were going to die, so I wanted to give audiences an experiential thrill where they would walk out of the cinema feeling better.”
Since releasing in South Korea through Showbox on February 22 – it led the box office for seven consecutive weeks – Exhuma has taken $82.8m from nearly 11.9 million admissions, making it a certified blockbuster in a country with a population of around 50 million. It is comfortably the biggest film of 2024 in South Korea to date.
It has also proved a hit elsewhere in Asia as the highest-grossing Korean film ever in Vietnam and Indonesia and the second and third biggest Korean title in Australia and Thailand, respectively. With further releases in Malaysia and North America, the film has earned more than $95m worldwide. It will next open in India on Friday (May 3) through Impact Films.
“I made a film that I thought was just for genre fanatics, so I seem to have failed in that respect,” says Jang with a laugh. “The thing I did feel confident about was that you shouldn’t make a boring film. I wanted to make something that really needed to be seen in a theatre to be properly appreciated.”
The story revolves around two young shamans skilled in exorcism, played by Kim Go-eun and rising star Lee Do-hyan, who team with a feng shui expert and undertaker, played by acclaimed star Choi Min-sik of Oldboy fame, and Yoo Hae-jin.
Together they work to solve the woes of a wealthy family, who suspect a dead relative is unhappy in his grave, requiring an exhumation and reburial. The creepy consequences of their actions comprise the first half of the film, with glimpses in the shadows of something sinister unfurling. The stakes ramp up considerably in the second half as an even deeper trauma from the past literally returns to the surface for a reckoning.
With clear symbolism throughout, the story ends up exploring Korea’s history of colonialisation, with long threads across the internet dedicated to decoding all the elements of the story. It is this level of discussion that has helped fuel word of mouth on the film.
“When you dig into the past of Korean history, there are two key problems you unearth,” explains Jang. “One is from 100 years ago and the other is from 500 years ago, and in both cases they involve an invasion by Japan. It is this painful history that I wanted to unearth and release.”
Digging deep
It is not the first time Jang has dealt with a surprise hit. His debut, The Priests, achieved unexpected success in 2015, recording more than 5.4 million admissions with a cast that included Park So-dam (Parasite). This was followed by 2019’s Svaha: The Sixth Finger, led by future Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae, which was number one on its opening week.
It took five years for Jang to realise his third feature, the story of which came from his own experience of exhumations, conducted during a period of research. “They’re quite common,” he says. “I was digging up bones with a mortician to re-bury them in a new site. Over the course of doing that around 15 times, I came to understand the meaning of this act. As you go deeper into the ground, you get the sense that you’re moving into the past.”
Jang reveals that the biggest change he made to the script was to make it more hopeful, which was a reaction to the pandemic. “My original intention was to make a serious horror film like Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing,” he says of the mystery horror that played out of competition at Cannes in 2016. “But this was at a time when I thought people would still be going to theatres in masks so rather than something so bleak and dark, I wanted to make something that would reward audiences emotionally.”
Produced by Showbox and Pinetown Production in association with MCMC, shooting took place from October 2022 to April 2023. Although primarily set just below the border with North Korea, the production continually moved south during shooting so that the landscapes would maintain an autumnal feel and not be scuppered by the deep snow that settles further north in the winter. This ranged from Gangwon-do Province to Seoul, Busan, South Gyeongsang and South Jeolla.
“I really want to give credit to the actors in this film, because they took a story that is kind of outrageous and illogical in a sense but performed it in a way to convince the audience and make them believe,” he says.
Exhuma received its world premiere on February 16 in the Forum section of the Berlinale, going on to screen at Hong Kong International Film Festival and more recently Udine’s Far East Film Festival, where Screen spoke to Jang this week. After playing to a sold-out screening at the Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine, an audience of more than 1,000 cinemagoers gave a visibly jubilant Jang a standing ovation. The late-night screening included some truly cacophonous moments and Jang admits: “I asked them to pump up the volume a bit.”
The success of Exhuma has provided a much-needed boost to Korea’s box office, which has struggled to recover post-pandemic. “People became very accustomed over the pandemic to streaming and what this film has done is remind people of the joy of going to watch a film on the big screen,” says Jang.
He acknowledges the challenges facing the Korean film industry. “The biggest problem is this extreme contrast,” says the filmmaker. “There are tremendous successes but also many films that fail. The middle of the industry has fallen out. I really feel that mid-level successes are what’s needed for the film industry to recover. They are, in a way, more important.”
Future plans
Despite the success of Exhuma, Jang makes it clear that a sequel or spin-off is not being planned. “I have to continue to evolve,” he says. “It’s important that I make something new. If I were to make a sequel, I’d certainly make a lot of money, but I wouldn’t evolve as a director.”
Instead, he is in the early stage of developing an original story based around a vampire, citing Dracula author Bram Stoker as inspiration, and promising a film that will be no less unsettling than Exhuma. “I’m writing in my brain every day something very, very strange,” says Jang. “I want to make a vampire movie in Korea, set [against the backdrop of] the Greek Russian Orthodox church. I will spend two years writing before preparing and shooting, so perhaps it will be ready in four years. I’m lazy.”
What he is not expecting off the back of his recent success is an inflated budget. “I’m not somebody who spends a huge budget on films and typically stay within the level of KW15bn ($12m),” says Jang. “Within that budget, I’m able to do pretty much everything I want to do. For my next film, I want to remain within that budget… but make something even stranger.”
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