A shaman and her friends must deal with evil spirits from the past, and one of them is big, angry, and doesn’t speak Korean. How rude! He must be EVIL!
Exhuma is an entertaining movie that creates a fantastic, creepy atmosphere in the first 70 minutes. The movie looks great, of course—the Koreans have nailed that for the last 20 years. The pacing is also good in the first 70 minutes, but the last hour isn’t as strong after the big man turns up. I enjoyed the character since I didn’t expect such a large one, and of course, he just had to be Japanese. All Japanese are evil, especially the devils from the past. Poor Japan. They will never catch a break from the Chinese and Koreans after what they have done to those two countries.
Exhuma is a ghost movie where our heroes try to help a rich family. The rich family must dig up a grave that contains the body of an old fart who can’t get the rest he needs. So a newborn child is in grave danger, and the shaman and her friends are the only ones who can stop the old, dead fart. But what they don’t know is that it ain’t over until the fat lady sings. And the fat lady in this movie is huge!
The acting is pretty good since we have one of the best actors in South Korea, Choi Min-sik, in one of the leading roles. We also find Kim Go-eun, who I’m also a fan of, and the good old big-mouth Yoo Hae-jin. This is also the first movie that TV actor Lee Do-hyun has starred in, and he looks like a real man in Exhuma. I couldn’t see that much lipstick on his lips, unlike in the TV series he stars in. He found out that he acted in a real movie with real men who smell and look like real men! And Kim Go-eun has that sexy Korean woman voice I love. They sound more manly than Korean men. Oh yeah, talk deep to me, you sexy Korean women, and show me your sexy legs!
As mentioned, the first 70 minutes are solid, with a lot of atmosphere and perfect pacing. The movie has a lot of mystery that keeps you engaged.
What confused me in the last scene is that the movie tries to tell us that the shaman and her friends have become a sort of family. But I didn’t buy that since the shaman tells us early in the movie that she doesn’t like the two other men. So their becoming a sort of family towards the end didn’t feel right since the script never gives the central characters any depth to speak of. So there are some emotional scenes here that fall flat because of the lackluster writing of the characters. They are here to do a job, nothing more. They are not here to bond and become best friends forever and ever.
If you like ghost movies and a big, scary Japanese character with great cinematography and an unsettling atmosphere in the first 70 minutes, then you should check out Exhuma. It doesn’t manage to follow up the first 70 minutes as the pace slows down and a lot of the mystery disappears. But it’s still an entertaining movie that is easy to like if you enjoy angry ghosts and a sexy woman with a deep voice. Oh yeah, dig it!