| Synopsis: On the night before the start
of the new school term, teacher Mrs Park becomes deeply disturbed by something she
discovers in two of the school’s past yearbooks. Panicked, she phones her junior
colleague, Hur Eun-young, and tells her that Jin-ju is still around. At that moment, the
phone-line drops out. A strange force lifts Mrs Park off her feet and strangles her to
death. The killer – a girl in school uniform – drags the teacher’s body
through the school and out onto an elevated walkway. Meanwhile, another teacher on night
duty discovers the window of classroom 3-3 open, and shuts it with some difficulty. As
soon as he has gone, the window slides open again, the curtains covering it billowing in
the wind; while drops of blood fall from the ceiling and splash onto a desk carved with
the initials JJ. Early the next morning, Lim Ji-oh arrives at the school to find another
student, the shy Ja-yee, waiting for her. Ja-yee nervously points out that the two of them
are on weekly duty, then confesses that she was scared to enter the school alone. Ji-oh
passes her with a contemptuous shrug but then, her better nature asserting itself, takes
Ja-yee by the hand and leads her into the building. Entering classroom 3-3, the two girls
are astonished to find another student, Kim Jung-sook, already at her desk. Ji-oh and
Ja-yee collect their cleaning utensils and leave. Halfway downstairs, Ja-yee realises that
she has forgotten a cleaning cloth and goes back for it. Ji-oh goes outside and is filling
a bucket with water when something catches her eye. She stares in horror at Mrs
Park’s body, which is hanging from the walkway. At that moment, Ja-yee appears.
Instinctively, Ji-oh grabs her and swings her back around, covering the girl’s eyes.
Above them, Jung-sook watches unseen from the classroom window. A teacher, nicknamed
"Mad Dog", assembles the girls who know what has happened, and warns them not to
say a word about it. Hur Eun-young enters the teachers’ room in time to hear the
headmaster telling his staff not to talk about the incident, and that another teacher will
be assigned for Class 3-3. Eun-young gazes at Mrs Park’s empty chair as comprehension
dawns…. Later, looking up at the walkway, Eun-young reflects on the phone-call of the
previous night. Toying with a pair of small silver bells, the young teacher thinks back
nine years to when she was a student at the school herself, and was given the bells by her
best friend – Jin-ju. In class, Park So-young whispers that perhaps Mrs Park’s
death was not suicide; that Jung-sook was at school even before the duty girls, and had
clashed with Mrs Park. Eun-young remembers an incident of her student days, when Mrs Park
punished Jin-ju harshly for being out of uniform, then spoke insulting of her mother as a
"shaman". So-young tries to convince Ji-oh – who claims to be a clairvoyant
– to summon up Mrs Park’s ghost. Ji-oh agrees, but the girls are caught and
severely reprimanded by "Mad Dog". Ja-yee falls foul of the school’s bad
girls, and has to be rescued by Ji-oh. Eun-young discovers that two of the school’s
yearbooks are missing from the library. Ja-yee finds Ji-oh in the art-room, and thanks her
for helping her. Reluctantly, Ji-oh shows Ja-yee her painting – it is of Mrs
Park’s dead body. After her initial shock, Ja-yee surprises Ji-oh by speaking
knowledgeably of painting and praising her use of light. Ja-yee says she studied art a
long time ago. Eun-young enters classroom 3-3 and finds Jung-sook sitting silently at the
desk bearing the carved initials. Jung-sook leaves immediately, and Eun-young sits at the
desk, remembering when she herself carved those initials in it – a gift for Jin-ju,
so that the desk would be hers forever. Ji-oh enters to get something from her locker,
commenting that it is now her desk. As Ji-oh leaves, Eun-young is startled to
realise that she is carrying a pair of small silver bells…. Comments: Whispering Corridors is a most unusual film
inasmuch as it represents the rare blending of two almost mutually exclusive genres –
the horror film and (if I’ll forgive myself for using this abhorrent expression) the
"chick flick". Park Ki-hyung’s directorial debut is an atmospheric film
full of memorable visuals and eerie scenes; but as much as it is a ghost story, it is also
a character study and a rumination upon the miseries of adolescence. When I called Whispering
Corridors a (yecchh!) chick flick, I did so not because it meets the usual nauseating
criteria, but because the dynamics of the story seem to have been torn whole (and possibly
bleeding) from within the depths of the female psyche – something that can perhaps be
credited to the film’s co-writer, In Jung-ok. Indeed, so profoundly feminine is this
film’s whole consciousness, and so entirely does the story depend upon the emotions
and attitudes of girls teetering between adolescence and womanhood, that I find it hard to
predict how a male audience might react to it. For one thing – do boys have
"best friends"? I’m not sure that they do – at least, not in the sense
that girls do: those intense, passionate pairings-off whose makings and breakings do so
much to shape the character in early life. An understanding of this dynamic is crucial to
a full appreciation of this film, in which the plot stems from the evolution of three such
relationships. Firstly, we see the blossoming of the introverted Ja-yee as her association
with the headstrong, independent Ji-oh slowly develops. Conversely, we see also the
anguish caused by the severance of the ties between So-young and Jung-sook, once
inseparable, now driven apart by forces both social and academic. And underlying both of
these situations are the sketched-in details of the friendship between the younger
Eun-young and the tragic Jin-ju, the breakdown of which proved to be the first link in a
chain of events leading to Jin-ju’s death – and to her haunting of the school
where she died. We are made aware of Jin-ju’s ghostly presence in the film’s
very first scene. However, Mrs Park’s frantic claim that she has been attending
school adds another layer to the mystery – even a dash of the detective story –
as the audience is encouraged to try and recognise this apparently malevolent spirit in
her corporeal form. That three of the film’s main characters have names starting with
"J" is an obvious indicator, although it is left for the viewer to determine
whether this represents a real clue, or merely a red herring. Has Jin-ju returned as the
"clairvoyant" Ji-oh, who shares the dead girl’s artistic leanings? Or as
the self-effacing Ja-yee, so clearly an outsider, and who, it seems, must be invited into
the school by someone else? Or as the silent, dangerously repressed Jung-sook, the events
of whose life seem to be mimicking those of Jin-ju’s? Or does the danger lie
somewhere else entirely? Whispering Corridors is a leisurely paced film (perhaps
too much so for some horror fans), with its various characters each given their share of
screen time, and the audience having ample opportunity to consider the evidence put before
it. One thing made abundantly clear is that the sudden eruption of supernatural violence
in the school is a response to the workings of an academic system so regimented that it
threatens the literal destruction of anyone not mentally and emotionally tough enough to
withstand the devastating pressures that it exerts.
For Western viewers, the most challenging aspect of
watching Whispering Corridors might be trying to figure out what is
"normal" about the school depicted and what isn’t. For one thing, it
isn’t even easy to determine whether it is a day school, a boarding school, or a
mixture of both. Some girls are seen arriving and leaving, but others seem to be there all
hours of the night and day. We learn that the teachers are expected to take turns at
"night duty" – patrolling the school at night like security guards –
while the girls are paired up for "weekly duty" – which seems to consist of
doing the school’s janitorial work. Still more startling – and distressing
– is the savagery of the punishments meted out to the students over the course of the
film (and all the more so since, by Western standards at least, these girls are painfully
well behaved). The glint in Mrs Park’s eyes as she punishes Jin-ju will, I imagine,
be familiar to anyone who’s ever attended any school (there’s always one
teacher like that, isn’t there?); but that so slight an infraction of the
school’s dress-code could draw such a savage reprisal may well come as a shock –
certainly to American viewers. Most disturbing of all, however, is the behaviour of the
teacher known as "Mad Dog". At one point, the young teacher Eun-young expresses
surprise when she learns that the girls’ nickname for him isn’t
"Pervert" – and with good reason. In his "good" mood, Mad Dog
likes to caress the back of his students’ necks, or pinch their earlobes – often
while informing them that women should be "tender and soft". (That Eun-young
witnesses this yet dares not protest is another disquieting factor.) When admonishing a
student, Mad Dog emphasises his words by poking the unfortunate girl in the chest –
if she’s lucky, with his pointer; if not…. When he is roused to real anger by
the discovery of Ji-oh’s painting of Mrs Park’s death, the outcome is bellowed
obscenities – moron! bitch! shithead! – and physical violence, as Ji-oh
is knocked to the ground. (I don’t want to give too much away, but you might perhaps
like to know that this shining light of the teaching profession does eventually receive a
most satisfying comeuppance.) Yet clearly Mad Dog’s behaviour is not an aberration,
for Jung-sook, too, angers a teacher, and is struck hard enough to draw blood. What is
most horrifying about all this is that none of the other girls seem shocked by it;
frightened and distressed, yes, but not surprised. We are therefore led to infer
that, indeed, this is actually what goes on in Korean schools. Behind all of what we
witness is a relentless pressure for academic success. The girls are taught to think of
one another, not merely as competitors, but as enemies. Moreover, they are further
encouraged to consider themselves as enemies, if any of their natural impulses
should lead them from an absolute focus on their studies. (Hence the attack upon Ji-oh for
her artistic tendencies and her scholastic indifference.) The distance between school life
as frequently depicted in American horror films, where no-one ever seems to do any work of
any kind, and that depicted here, where academia is all-engulfing, and where anyone who
"fails" is held up to ridicule and abuse (verbal and physical), is
nothing short of staggering. It is interesting, therefore, that the two school systems are
shown to be equally ruinous. If American films tend to concentrate upon the potentially
crushing nature of the social dynamic, Whispering Corridors reminds us that a
system intellectually orientated to the exclusion of all else is no less destructive.
It is necessary to comprehend the workings of the school
system outlined in Whispering Corridors before it is possible to understand fully
the tragedy underlying the story of Jin-ju. This was a girl who simply did not fit in
– an outsider due both to her social standing (as various derogatory references to
the girl’s mother inform us) and to her failure in the schoolroom. The one saving
grace in Jin-ju’s life was her friendship with Eun-young – until this was taken
away from her through a mixture of cruelty and cowardice. For all the intensity of the
relationships depicted in this film, sexual connotations are distinctly lacking; or at
most, they are present only as the most subtle of undertones. Nevertheless, there is
clearly something abnormal about the attitude of the teacher Mrs Park towards her students
– possibly a repressed sexuality reasserting itself in overt acts of sadism. The
pleasure that Mrs Park takes in her physical punishment of Jin-ju is unmistakable, but no
more so than that which the teacher evinces when she succeeds in destroying the friendship
between Jin-ju and Eun-young. By harping upon Jin-ju’s "unsuitability", and
more significantly, by intimating that Eun-young’s choice of friend might impact upon
her school results, Mrs Park finally frightens the weak-willed girl into abandoning the
unfortunate Jin-ju, and leaving her to face alone the verbal taunting of her classmates
and the relentless harassment of her teachers. When Jin-ju’s lonely, bloody death
follows we cannot be surprised – and nor are we when her spirit’s first
retributive act results in the equally bloody death of Mrs Park. Intriguingly, we later
learn that Jin-ju’s spirit has been present in the school all along – but that
no-one noticed. The girl is as much an outsider in death as she was in life. It is only
when Mrs Park, possibly driven by an unquiet conscience, begins to uncover the truth that
Jin-ju ceases to be a mere passive presence and begins a campaign of violence, finding in
death a strength and a determination that entirely eluded her during her unhappy life.
Despite the violence of Whispering Corridors’
opening scenes, this is not a film of overt horror, but rather one of gradual unease.
Jin-ju’s presence is implied, rather than shown: movements in the shadows; a window
that won’t stay shut; a bloodstain that no-one seems to notice but Ji-oh. One of the
real successes of Whispering Corridors is that as many of its disturbing scenes
take place in broad daylight as in the darkness. In addition, frightening use is made of
the corridor that lies before the school’s Year 12 classrooms – a corridor so
long that trying to discern just who is standing at the far end of it is unnervingly
difficult…. Director Park Ki-hyung is perhaps too reliant upon some overly familiar
scare tactics – dark and stormy nights; characters standing with their backs to the
audience as something steals up on them; gliding camerawork to suggest a
supernatural force – but nevertheless, they are well and effectively deployed. The
cinematography of Suh Jung-min is a real asset, making excellent use of light and shadow
and creating a tangibly disturbing atmosphere. One of the frustrating things about
reviewing this film has been the difficulty in finding any information about the cast.
Research has determined that the top-billed Lee Mi-yeon plays Hur Eun-young, but that is
as far as I’ve got. This is aggravating to me because, as I explained at the
beginning, this film is very much character based, and contains some excellent
performances, especially from the two girls who play Lim Ji-oh and Kim Jung-sook; and I
would like to be able to put names to their faces. Whispering Corridors is a
comparatively long film, and quite a slow one. People who like their horror films fast
moving and intense will probably find little to praise in it. However, viewers who are
willing to give themselves up to its mood, and who can appreciate the nuanced depiction of
character, may not only enjoy it, but might even find themselves moved by it –
particularly by the subplot concerning Jung-sook, which is finally heartbreakingly sad.
Ultimately, Whispering Corridors is a film for people who – like me –
prefer being creeped out to being grossed out.
Footnote: Special
thanks to Tom Giammarco for the following cast information - "Mad Dog" was
played by Park Yong-su; Kim Gyu-ree (Kim Gyu-ri) was Ji-oh; Choi Gang-hie was Ja-yee; Park
Jin-hie was So-young; Yun Ji-hye was Jung-sook. It was the first film role for all four
young actresses.
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Director: Park Ki-hyung