Film still of Goksung (The Strangers) © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Goksung (The Strangers), rumours and suspicions in a tight-knit community
After first coming to prominence in Cannes in 2008 with The Chaser, Na Hong Jin reaffirmed his attraction to le film noir two years later in The Yellow Sea, which was selected for Un Certain Regard. The brilliantly naturalistic The Strangers focuses on the investigation of an inspector after a series of unexplained murders in a tight-knit community.
An old man (Kunimura Jun) shows up in a quiet little Korean village. No one knows who he is or where he's from. While mysterious rumours begin to circulate about him, various villagers are savagely killed in ways that remain unexplained.
For Inspector Jong-Gu (Kwak Do Won), tasked with leading the enquiry, these atrocities are caused by supernatural forces. With the village in the throes of torment, a shaman is called to the rescue.
Six years after The Yellow Sea, Na Hong Jin explores the impact of rumours on the members of a little community mysteriously struck by death. He focuses on the story of a father determined to save his daughter from a highly unusual kind of threat.
“Anonymity causes suspicion”
Based on the notion that "anonymity gives rise to suspicion", the Korean filmmaker says he set out to explore in depth what happens to the human soul when it is "corrupted by an unknown creature, which might be real or imaginary, good or bad – we don't know."
Within this closed community Na Hong Jin has created a realistic narrative that moves along at a brisk space, in stark contrast to the hitherto unruffled calm of the villagers.
Two and a half years of writing were required for the director to wrap up the screenplay. "After The Yellow Sea, I thought I had identified my own limits. But with this project, I discovered something really wild," he says, adding that the shoot of The Strangers took six months, with particular attention being paid to the towns and villages of Korea that served as a backdrop.
