Exhuma: Korean Shamanism and The Post Trauma of Japanese Colonialism
Reaching 700 thousand viewers within a week in Indonesia cinema, the Korean horror movie; Exhuma is a breath of fresh air for the type of slow burn horror movie that doesn’t just rely on jump scares or scary portrayal of ghost. This movie reverses the stereotype of shamanism, which sounds old and closely related to superstition, by telling the story of a modern-day Korean shamanism practice. The combination of Buddhism and feng shui also makes this movie even more closely related to the traditions and customs of Korean society who still believe in feng shui rules in everyday life, such as the rules for building houses, property and selecting burial plots. However, not only showing the strong tradition of shamanism in Korea, but through this movie, it shows the dark history of Korea and Japan.
The existence of shamanism in the modern era
Now let’s focus on the first trigger in this movie. The existence of Korean shamanism in the modern era makes one of the rich families in Korea who live in America entrust the duo of shamans to cure their child, who is suffering from a disease that even modern medicine doesn’t know the cause of or how to cure. To avoid further spoilers, another interesting part of this film is the practice of buying burial plots, which is common among people in Korea, especially rich families who want a final resting place that must be comfortable because of the belief in an afterlife after spending a lifetime in the mortal world. The horror impression in this movie begins to build up in this phase, where it turns out that the grave plot that the family bought is very bad, according to Feng Shui. Then the epic scene is during the daesalgeot ritual, which makes this movie widely discussed in the timeline for the good acting of Kim Goeun, who plays Lee Hwarim. Ritual and trance scenes are also shown during this movie, which proves that even in the modern era, Korean people still believe in superstition and shamanic practices.
History is buried at the tiger’s back
The main problem in this movie lies in the dark history of the past, where shown in several scenes the connection between the colonial period carried out by Japan and Korea. If you break it down, it becomes clearer. According to my observations, this problem started during the Imjin War, or the first Japanese invasion of Korea, which took place in 1592–1598. This arises from the assumption that the costume worn by the demon who will become the “Last Boss” at the end of the movie wears battle armor that commonly wore at the end of the sengoku period. At that time, there was a war on the Korean peninsula, which Korea itself won after 7 years of fighting against Japan. Japan withdrew from the war but marked Korean land as its own by sacrificing the strongest Daimyō with a height of more than 2 meters and burying him with an iron stake, which was said to split the peninsula Korea divided into two parts (South Korea and North Korea). This detail also the reason why there is a statement, “The fox bit the tiger’s back” because the location of the burial of the iron stake is at the point of the tiger’s back (the Korean map looks like a tiger).
So what does the Korean-Japanese war have to do with the Park family’s great-ancestors? According to theories floating around in the timeline, Park’s great-ancestor’s era coincided with the period of Japanese colonialism in Korea, which began in 1910–1945 and made the Korean people divided into pro-Japanese and pro-Korean independence. A wild assumption circulating is that Park’s great-grandfather had the same power as a king as well as being a chinilpa (pro-Japanese faction), so that Park’s great-ancestor’s descendants chose a place to live far from the location of the grave until they settled in America. This certainly adds to the impression that Exhuma is not just an ordinary horror because it clearly mentions Japan’s sins against Korea, which are still clearly recorded in dark historical records.
After more than 2 hours…
After watching this Korean horror movie for more than 2 hours, I didn’t go home feeling scared or forgetting the entire plot of the film (as I usually do after watching horror movie). The first thing I did on the way home was read theories and historical notes that can be accessed on the internet so that I could conclude that director Jang’s brilliant idea of combining shamanism, history, and elements of occult beliefs was worthy of praise. Lastly, my message to everyone is: don’t forget history because it is very important.