A Thousand Year Old Fox
Director: Shin Sang-ok
Year: 1969
Rating: 6.5
Country:
Korea
Fox Spirits are common folktales that spread
from China to Japan to Korea. Called Huli Jing in China, Kitsune in Japan
and Gumiho in Korea. In these stories foxes have powers to shapeshift into
humans or possess them. They can be good or evil. The evil ones are more
fun. This period Korean film has a very evil fox spirit who possess a woman
who is looking for revenge. It is directed by Shin Sang-ok and he lavishes
it with color and melodrama. It looked good enough that Shaw distributed
the film in Hong Kong and it matches up well with some of their period productions.
Shin had a relationship with Shaw having directed The Goddess of Mercy for
them in 1966, Shaw distributed a few of his Korean films and he also directed
The Ghost Lovers in 1973. In the same year as this, Shin directed another
Korean horror folk tale - Snake Woman. He was to work on other Hong
Kong films - Blood and Rose (1975) and Girls in the Tiger Cage parts 1 and
2 - until he was kidnapped by North Korea in 1978 in Hong Kong.
After two years, General Kim (Shin Young-kyun)
has returned from fighting at the border and defeating the enemies of the
Silla Dynasty (668 - 935) and has an audience with the Queen (Kim Hye-jeong).
She congratulates him and invites him to a private dinner in her quarters.
Strategy is the last thing on her mind as she tells him "I'm a woman at night"
and attempts to seduce the General. She is lonely and very horny and has
scandalized the court. The General though is married to Yeo-hwa (Kim Ji-su)
who he is madly in love with and wants to get home to her and the son he
has never seen. The Queen has a solution for that and exiles Yeo-hwa out
of the city with only her maid, a servant and the baby. On the way they are
attacked by a gang of ruffians who stomp on the baby, kill the servants and
chase Yeo-hwa through the woods until she falls into a pond. Not just any
pond though.
Years before a Silla King had come across
a fox spirit that was demanding virgins be sacrificed and was up to 999.
She never made it to 1,000 though as the King slayed her and threw her into
the pond. The spirit is still in there waiting for a human to possess and
here comes Yeo-hwa. Who very much wants revenge. The General tracks her down
and though everyone tells him she is dead, he keeps telling them she isn't.
The Nang Nak dilemma. When the gang turns up dead and his wife has gone missing,
he is a bit suspicious but he loves her and takes her home. Reports come in that at night a flying creature
is trying to kill the Queen and his wife has dirty feet in the morning. Nah.
Not my sweet Yeo-hwa. When he realizes that she is in fact possessed, instead
of a Taoist priest as in a Hong Kong film, he brings in a Buddhist priest
to exorcise her - but the Queen wants her dead. There are some nice scenes
of Yeo-hwa flying about (using wires) but towards the end it turns into a
film of love, eternal devotion and unrequited love. This is up on YouTube
in the Korean Archives section.
