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The first time I watched Exhuma was just last week, at a CGV Vietnam cinema in downtown Hanoi - a branch under CJ Group's cinema arm CJ CGV. Half of the cinema choices near my house were owned by CGV, and among the film choices at the time, half were Korean productions, so the choice simply made sense for an office worker who just wanted to fill his Saturday night off. But more than that, I also want to check out the film for myself - one that had just become the best-selling Korean movie ever in the Vietnamese market, just 18 days after its official release in the country on March 13. Among the countless drama, action and comedy flicks from Korea that made waves in Vietnam in the past years, why is it that a horror flick about grave digging takes the crown?

It was the fifth week of screening, and interests in Exhuma seemed to have yet to slip. As I queue my way into the cinema, I overheard a group of young women raving about the supporting actor Lee Do Hyun. "I like his baby face, but this time he has the body and tattoos too. Exquisite kind!", one woman waxed lyrical as her friends burst into giggles. While not sharing the same enthusiasm for the actor as she does, I understand her in a way - the image of human faces and bodies filled with Buddhist scripture was the standout impression that I had in mind before coming to the screening. For me, it immediately calls to mind the emblematic visual in the Japanese cult classic film Kwaidan(1964), and the eerie fantastical world that it managed to build. But for the general public in Vietnam, the image definitely strikes a chord with the ritualistic belief that Buddhist text holds a mystic power to repel evils - one that Vietnamese people share with other countries in the Sinosphere, including Korea, Japan and China.

Visually stunning and culturally significant as it is, it is not coincidental that the facial sigils became the one viral trend that came out of the movie, and also one that sparks heated cultural debate on the internet. In Vietnam, the PR campaign for the movie also includes this detail: People with "marks on the skins" (tattoos or sigils) coming to see the film at CGV's 4D cinemas will receive a free gift.

Yet, as the fangirl in the queue suggested, the largest force that pulled people to the movie theater was not merely the sigils, but rather the movie stars that those sigils were drawn on. Directed by Jang Jae-hyun and featuring veteran stars Choi Min-sik and Yoo Hae-jin, Exhuma was already considered a surefire hit before it hit the silver screen at Berlinale - and simultaneously, at Korean cinemas - this February. Nevertheless, the biggest star power that the movie offers to the Vietnamese market would come from the supporting role of Lee Do-hyun. Since his 2017 TV debut at the age of 22 with the series Prison Playbook, the actor has started to gather a following in Vietnam, which has only grown exponentially in size after his following breakout roles in Hotel Del Luna, Sweet Home, 18 Again, Youth of May, and most notably the lead role alongside Song Hye-kyo in Netflix's hit series The Glory. SKYER VN, his first and largest Facebook fan page, launched in 2017, has now reached over 170,000 followers who actively engage with his work activity and daily life(even now, when he is on hiatus for military service).

Fans gather for a group photo after a fan screen event of Exhuma, organized by SKYER VN - a Vietnamese fan page of Lee Do-hyun 

Considering Lee Do-hyun's media pull, most press coverage around Exhuma in Vietnam is gravitated towards him. "I almost thought Lee Do-hyun was the male lead of the movie from all the media!", one Vietnamese commenter exclaimed on an Exhuma film review post on Facebook. It is also worth noting the pull of the other rising star in the movie - Kim Go-Eun, who also gained traction in Vietnam thanks to popular TV/web drama titles such as Cheese in the Trap, The King: Eternal Monarch, and most notably the breakout hit drama Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (also known as Goblin) alongside A-lister Gong Yoo in 2017.

Yet, would the two stars's impact be enough of the reason for such a gigantic box office hit?

As the film descends into the dark magic and bloody rituals, the audience, including me, felt the creepiness slowly burning on the back of their head. During a possession scene, a woman grabbed onto her boyfriend’s arm, speaking under her breath "I did not expect it to be this scary"(probably referring to the fact that the film was marketed as a thriller/mystery rather than a horror flick), to which he replied "Don't be scared. It happens in my hometown all the time." It immediately swerved my train of thought back to my hometown too: where the dead live alongside the living, one way or another. I personally have seen "possessed bodies" at least twice - both could have simply been products of hysteria or dissociation, but it still became the talk of that day among us kids and our parents. We grew up to the TV interviews and documentaries of Phan Thi Bich Hang, a celebrity psychic who used her "gift" to talk to the dead martyrs and help their family find their graves. Stories of "double internment", and other strange tales of the dead among the living, were the hottest columns on Vietnamese newspapers of the 2000s. "Snakes at the grave", and "Ghost can't open the front door", were some of the recurring anecdotes.

Those beliefs are featured again in the first four chapters of the movie, as director Jang Jae-hyun explains the mix of Korean religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Shamanism and Ancestor Worship - each of which strikes a note of familiarity to the Vietnamese viewers' experience. To most of us, the mix of folk religions and rituals in Exhuma is as thrilling as it is familiar - more than any kind of horror story that Hollywood has to envision.

As the movie draws towards the end, all Vietnamese viewers realize another familiar story: the story of "the fox bit the tiger's belly" feels similar to the story of Gao Pian, the Chinese Tang Dynasty official who was sent to Jiaozhi/ancient Vietnam to quell rebels, also rumored to bury metal poles to curb the geomantic powers of the land since the 860s. In one video essay on Exhuma on YouTube, one person commented with slight astonishment: "Vietnam should catch on with the trend and tell the story of Gao Pian. It may become a hit as well!". Another brings him back to reality: "Not when the censorship is still there!".

Was it what brought Vietnamese people to see Exhuma in such a record turnout? Deep down inside all of us resides a longing to see our story being confirmed and reflected back to us, be it another person or a large silver screen. As Vietnamese are dying to see a shared explanation of their spiritual world in the form of fantasies, a well-directed Korean flick, coming from the same cultural sphere, addressing the same urge to know the unknown, is probably what makes do. For others, like the group of girls who fell head over heels for Lee Do-hyun, the two beautiful shamans in the peak of their youth having some screentime also helps, too.

About the writer

Le Xuan Tung is a Vietnamese journalist and cultural advocate. Based in Hanoi, his expertise in investigative journalism and cultural criticism provides vivid coverage and fresh insight into the cultural dynamics of Vietnam. His key interests include local artistic community, pop culture and media, and social functions of dance. His writings have appeared in established Vietnamese press and media including Tuoi Tre Newspaper, Matca and C4 Journal.