Gwi-hyang (2016)

Gwi-hyang: Directed by Cho Jung-Rae. With Soon-Hyoung Cha, Park Choong-Hwan, Kang Han-na, In-gi Jeong. Two Korean girls, Jung-Min (14) and Young-hee (15) are kidnapped by the Japanese Imperial Army and taken to a ‘Comfort Station’ in China. There, they join other kidnapped girls in serving Japanese soldiers as sexual slaves known as ‘Comfort Woman’. By the end of the war, only one of the girls survives. Decades later, an elderly lady attempts to reunite with the spirit of her lost friend. Inspired by the testimony of Kang Il-chul.

“Spirits Homecoming (2016)u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt is alleged that during World War 2 the Japanese army kept 1 million women from occupied countries and kept them as slaves where they were euphemistically known as u0026#39;comfort womenu0026#39;. If little is known about them, it may be because their story has not been told in film before. The film took the director 14 years to make. The actress playing Jungmin (Ha-nung) was not paid but will receive a share of the profits.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis film is effective at showing how girls as young as 14 were removed from their homes and ordered to with dozens of men daily, and where they faced terrible punishments for disobeying orders. The film is set mainly in 1943, interspersed with scenes in 1991 where a much older Young-OK tries to settle her past and say goodbye to her friend Jungmin who didnu0026#39;t survive the war.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhen Eun-kyung goes to a temple to train as a shaman, she helps Young-OK communicate with Jungmin. The past is linked with the present in all kinds of interesting ways. Eunkyung is affected by her fatheru0026#39;s murder as one of the comfort women is by watching her brotheru0026#39;s death. Keepsakes are given from character to character and the elderly Young-OK is seen cradling a charm totem much like the one given to Jungmin by her mother in the past.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe film doesnu0026#39;t shy away from scenes of violence both physical and sexual. Day in, day out, the girls are expected to have sex with dozens men which doesnu0026#39;t stop even when they are menstruating. There is no way out from this and girls who attempt to escape are rounded up and shot. However, it achieves a certain poetry in later scenes, such as when dozens of white butterflies float in the meadows, a visual metaphor for the souls of the girls returning to their homes.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eViewers familiar with Korean cinema will notice a sense of a nation finally able to acknowledge its past and the brutality of the Japanese occupiers in particular. Japanu0026#39;s invasion of Korea has already been depicted in recent films such as The Handmaiden and Age of Shadows. This film has a strong sense of Korean identity, with the traditional folk song Arirang played prominently in several scenes.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eLead actress Ha-Nang is very innocent and pure, playing a girl of 14 who somehow doesnu0026#39;t lose her innocence. Son Sook has the eyes of someone who has seen too many horrors but still has the capacity to forgive. The movie could have been better edited but it tells a difficult story well.”