MovieChat Forums > Gokseong (2016) Discussion > Everyone is wrong! I will give you the c...

Everyone is wrong! I will give you the correct explanation

posted 8 years ago by Geff (453)
11 replies | jump to latest

I have a very long explanation about the movie in tmdb forums. Sorry, I can't repost it here because of word limit.

Here is the link: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/293670-gok-seong/discuss/590335749251413e3800a279

In the topic I go into detail all of the hints and clues that will lead you to the correct conclusion.

I'll summarize:

The girl in white = The liar/ Evil spirit.

The forest shaman = The protector/exorcist of dead bodies; until he gets killed and possessed. He doesn't tell truths or lies, he believes that the truth won't change anyone's minds.

The hired shaman, Il-gwang = The truth sayer.

Jong-soo's deputy = Possessed liar.

Summary of important events:

1) Jong-goo and deputy go to investigate first murder.

2) That night they get visit from naked possessed lady. Later that night the evil spirit attempts to possess both of them in their sleep. Jong-goo's possession fails, but deputy gets possessed. Deputy will constantly lie and misdirect from now on.

3) On the night of investigation of second family death, Jong-goo's daughter, Hyo-jin, comes to the police station to drop off clothes and on the way back she gets possessed.

4) Jong-goo meets and interacts with girl in white/evil spirit at the site of second family death. She lies about the forest shaman.

5) Hyo-jin starts showing signs of possession compelling Jong-goo to take action

6) Jong-goo, possessed deputy and a deacon go to visit forest shaman in the woods.

7) At shaman's house they discover a ritual room and a room with lots of photos/belongings.

8) On the way back to the village, possessed deputy lies and tells deacon and Jong-goo that the forest shaman was using the pictures to possess people. This is a lie. Infact, he was using them to perform protection and soul sending rituals so that the dead couldn't become possessed.

9) Hyo-jin's possession symptoms increase because the deputy recovered her shoe from forest shaman's house. Forest shaman was using the shoe to cast a protection ritual.

10) Jong-goo and deacon visit forest shaman again and interrogate him. Forest shaman says that they wouldn't believe the truth.

11) Second shaman, Il-Gwang, comes from the city. He asks Jong-goo about someone Jong-goo had met who he was not supposed to meet. Jong-goo mistakenly says the forest shaman; infact the person he was not supposed to meet was the girl in white.

12) Il-Gwang casts a death hex on forest shaman. Forest shaman is simultaneously casting a final passage ritual on the dead guy in the car, Park Chun-Bae. Both these rituals are interrupted. Forest Shaman does not die from the death hex and Park Chun-Bae's dead body is vulnerable to possession.

13) The next day, Jong-goo and gang visit forest shaman's house in the woods yet again. They chase and eventually kill forest shaman.

14) Il-Gwang sees the evil spirit, but she can't possess him. Instead, blood spurts out of his nose and he vomits. Il-Gwang attempts to escape the village, but the evil spirit won't let him leave.

15) The deacon sees the continued deaths in spite of the forest shaman's death and starts to have doubts. He visits the forest shaman to get some answers. Forest shaman is now possessed and he repeats what alive forest shaman said previously, the truth doesn't matter because nobody will believe him. Deacon vehemently disagrees, but now it's too late to ask for the real truth because forest shaman is already dead and possessed.

16) Jong-goo meets the evil spirit and gets a phone call from Il-Gwang. Il-Gwang tells the truth about the mistaken identity of the forest shaman and tells Jong-goo not to get tempted by the spirit. The evil spirit constantly lies and tries to keep Jong-goo with her. She has a dual motive for keeping him: 1) so that he doesn't trigger the flower trap that is meant for Il-Gwang (who will enter later) 2) (possibility) She needs time to possess Jong-goo and Jong-goo has to fully believe her before she can possess him.

17) Jong-goo leaves the evil spirit and triggers the flower trap. The evil spirit is upset because she couldn't accomplish either of her goals by failing to keep Jong-goo with her.

18) Il-Gwang comes to Jong-goo's house after everyone is dead. He can pass the archeway because the flower trap is dead, thanks to Jong-goo. He takes photos of the family so that he can cast soul passage ritual, so that the dead bodies don't become possessed.

I'm not a 100% sure what the trap is that the girl was referring to. I have some theories about what it might be in the original tmdb post.

[–] SaraE84 (6) 8 years ago

Interesting theory. I like it!
Not completely sold on it but it does make some parts of the movie much, much better.

[–] Geff (453) 8 years ago

Can you please elaborate on what exactly you are not sold on?

Perhaps I can convince you. Or perhaps you can convince me about why I'm wrong. I encourage discussion and don't want people to take my idea as absolute fact. This is why I had to make my original post so lengthy. I had to put down all of the evidences present in the film that led me to my conclusion.

[–] kaleidoscope0_0 (483) 7 years ago

I was wondering if there was anyone out there that watched the same movie I did. :)

[–] AdrianChm (4) 7 years ago

(Copying myself from TMDB forum for convenience and with links)

Great work, nice to see this level of engagement, but I have to disagree.

Now, I love different interpretations and would never forget the fight over the ending of Shutter Island on IMDB forums. And I love how we have at least three reasonable hypotheses on The Wailing:

1. She was bad, they weren't
2. She was good, they weren't
3. Everybody was bad, it was just demons competing

I dislike using the quotes from the movie makers themselves, because these tend to kill some of the charm. However, when they exist, I cannot ignore them. Here's the director (http://screenanarchy.com/2016/06/interview-the-wailings-na-hong-jin-questions-for-a-mastermind-of-evil.html) on the Japanese man:

> Actually, xenophobia has nothing to do with it. Here, the figure of the father wants to defend and protect his family from a great threat. But what is this kind of threat? The father isn't someone who is defending himself with a shield from something like knives coming before him. He's more like someone who is hiding in a castle and must defend his castle. Strangers invade yet he doesn't know if they are allies or enemies. This was the kind of threat that I wanted to express. It's like a hidden threat deep inside. I felt that this would be more terrifying than a dynamic threat - something dwelling inside and not visible. I wanted to show this threat through someone with similar physical characteristics to Koreans. This is why I cast a Japanese actor. As time went by he would reveal his true nature and we would realise that he is different and that even communication is impossible. I wanted to express the fear coming from this impossibility of communication.

This fits the idea that the Japanese man was possessed by the demon, and was possessed from the start. Nothing else works.

(TBC)

[–] AdrianChm (4) 7 years ago

Ignoring the director for a moment, I could also simply argue that too many things do not add up if we go with your interpretation. Just one example:

In the beginning of the movie we see the Japanese man using two hooks for a bait. Ok, for now it's either that this is a hint that there will be two evil entities working on a victim here, or -- your version -- two good entities cooperating in their fight against evil. But "bait" is the important element here.

Much later, you have the Shaman explaining stuff to the hero of the movie:

"If you go fishing, do you know what you'll catch?"
"No."
"He's just fishing. Not even he knows what he'll catch. He just threw out the bait, and your daughter took it. That's all it was."

The director said once that the movie was inspired by the string of deaths of friends/family, some not from natural causes, and he was his way of dealing with the randomness of death. He knew how these people died, but could not figure out the whys. Here we have his attempt at the answer: that there is no logical explanation, it's all randomness.

Anyway, back to the movie. So, this is a nice parallel to the opening of the movie. The bait. If we go with "they're both bad, and the Shaman is helping the demon" it all works. With your hypothesis, things start to look puzzling. But for the sake of this discussion let's assume that for some reason things still work. Fine.

Then comes the crucial scene. The Japanese man dies or "dies" hit by the car. At the end of that segment, we see the hero's phone ringing. It's his wife. Very soon, we learn that she was calling him because his daughter is cured, yay!

Right after we see the phone ringing, the Shaman steps out of his house and says this: https://pastebin.com/xbJRDTBX.

(TBC)

[–] AdrianChm (4) 7 years ago

Now, on a Bluray this is translated as "The rat fell into the trap". However, one online translation service, and a Korean-English fan on Reddit claim it's "He took the bait". Does not really matter, the meaning is the same, but FWIW I think the Bluray misses a nice connection to the theme of "bait".

What could this "taking the bait / falling into the trap" mean? What does the Shaman mean by this?

Well, his scene is between the phone ringing and the hero's visit to the hospital, hugging his "cured" daughter. It's clear to me that the "bait/trap" is both the viewers and the hero's belief that now that the Japanese man is dead, the curse/demonic possession is taken off the daughter. "And then they lived happily ever after...".

This is the only explanation that makes sense. Sticking to your hypothesis, however enticing and intriguing, makes this scene ...honestly I have no idea what. If the Shaman knew it was a trap (i.e. no, the daughter is not fine, she's still possessed) *and* was a good man, wouldn't he warn the hero immediately? He never does that. The only thing he does - later - is to cast shadow and doubt over the Woman in White. Which ultimately makes the hero not believe in her, and tragically die (with a hope he finds peace in the afterlife).

So, The Wailing is a horror film about deception, and collecting all the evidence it seems to me you were the one deceived... Which only proves how fantastic that movie is.

[–] Geff (453) 7 years ago

I gave my response on the reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/horror/comments/69vp0j/the_wailing_2016_comprehensive_analysis_and/dli2okd/

[–] AdrianChm (4) 7 years ago

Me too, and yeah, makes sense we continue in one place -- thanks!

[–] Falconet (49) 6 years ago

thanks for this. your no 16 was the only remaining challenge I had to to prove my theory of the girl in white being evil.
now, I saw on the reddit page that in the end you kind of were convinced your theory was wrong. I read the counter argument against your theory and I am baffled as to what you found so convincing in them as the whole argument is based on everything but what we actually saw in the film.
there is absolutely no way the girl in white was protector for various reasons;
- she lies about the jong goo's sin. (even after his first encounter with the Japanse, on their way back, it was the other cop who was blabbering about the Japansese being the criminal. jong goo was still doubtful. he then went to her daughter to ask whether she knew and met the Japanese. the daughter was already showing severe symptoms of possession)
-she kept the Jong goo waiting by feeding him vague nonsense so that his girl kills the rest of the family.
-she had Hyo-jin's hair slide indicating the girl was with her when jong goo was looking for her in his house earlier in the movie. she had various objects from various possessed folks from the city now dead.
-at the stone throwing scene she also lies about having seen the Japanese crimes with her own eyes.
-she also lies about the dream about the Japanese. if it was no dream, how did Jong goo end up in his bed after getting caught by the Japanese? this applies to the first dude who fell from the hills and saw him eating a deer(?) too. he was caught too but there was no sign of it. my theory is that none of the images we see from the flesh eating version of the Jap are real.
the girl in white was the one who threw the body of Japanese in front of a moving car. this is not what a good spirit would have done; this could easily kill everyone in the moving car by either the impact itself or car losing control, etc. plus that she certainly knew the Japanese would turn into evil if/when he died. she wanted this to happen.

[–] Falconet (49) 6 years ago

plus, in my opinion none of the biblical references are the key to decipher the film as the whole film is about how narratives can be misleading. i.e. the biblical references are meant to be misleading. the only good forces from the film are shamans.(the japanese before his death and the hired shaman.) shamans do not belong in any man made doctrine, shamanism is about using the forces of nature itself to heal and grow.

[–] Geff (453) 6 years ago

I can't remember the original reddit discussions and where I had expressed some doubt that the girl was good. I agree with you on everything.

I have engaged in some private discussions on reddit about the movie after the reddit thread got closed. Unfortunately, reddit's algorithm automatically closes posts from comments after a certain period of time. I contacted the moderators, but they can't do anything about it.

After some discussions I have somewhat revised my views on the final encounter between he deacon and the shaman in the cave. I think it could be the case that the shaman is infact dead, and what the deacon saw in the cave was a product of his crazed hallucinations induced by the of the girl's persuasion and the persuasion generated by all of the false rumors throughout the town.

Another thing that I have had discussions about and something that I was unable to resolve is the Il-Gwang's comment back in the village when the forest shaman died, something along the lines of "The rat has fallen for the trap". Ofcourse this comment doesn't support one hypothesis or the other, because according to the alternative hypothesis Il-Gwang would not make a comment like this if he is allied with the other shaman. Maybe he simply sensed some energy pass away and assumed that it was the death hex killed the evil spirit, I don't know. Apparently the statement is different in other translations of the film. In any case it's a confusing line.