Nonetheless, the first hour remains a riveting watch, constructed with scenes to underscore the peril that Father Kim and Deacon Choi will soon find themselves in. Pretty much most of the first half is set-up for an elaborate display of the ritual in the second half, which takes place over the course of one full-moon night in a dingy top-floor apartment located at the heart of the bustling Myeong-dong district. Rather than contrive to take his audiences through a protracted story of Father Kim's battle with the demon within Young-shin, Jang opts for a much simpler narrative that places its emphasis on authenticity. His character is intended as Father Kim's complement as well as a passing-of-the-baton from veteran to rookie, and Gang shares an engaging dynamic with Kim in their scenes together. It is this frailty that the demon will exploit to taunt and scare him in the midst of the rite of exorcism, and Gang embodies his character's transformation from fear to temerity with wide-eyed wonder and tenacity. Needless to say, Deacon Choi soon finds himself way out of his depth as he is confronted with the very definition of evil, but there is more to Choi than just his naivety indeed, Choi remains haunted to this day by the guilt of a traumatic childhood accident where he failed to save his sister from being bitten to death by a ferocious dog. Yet the film belongs as much to Father Kim as it does to Deacon Choi, a fresh-eyed ingénue who is plucked out of theology school to assist Father Kim while acting as spy for the larger Catholic fraternity to keep an eye on their wayward brethren - and unlike Father Kim, his motivation is less to save a life than to save himself from a life of studying in the seminary.
He expresses with keenness not only the toll that Father Kim's fight with the demon inside Young-shin has taken on him, but also the conviction of his character's faith in the power of God over evil that gives him the strength to press on. It is hardly the first time that Kim is playing the role of the rebellious, tough-talking veteran, and he does it here with aplomb. Young-shin was a member of Father Kim's congregation when he was a priest of a church in the countryside, and it is partly their history that compels him to take matters into his own hands when the other members of his flock disapprove of his intentions to conduct an exorcism for Young-shin for fear of spooking the public. Digging deep into Roman Catholic theology to deliver a largely accurate depiction of the oft-misunderstood ritual, Jang delivers a tense and frequently edge-of-your-seat gripping portrait of the eternal fight between light and darkness, a theme which he also similarly explored in his award-winning 2014 short '12th Assistant Deacon'.Īs in that short, the key protagonists are a renegade priest Father Kim (Kim Yun-seok) and a priest-in-training Deacon Choi (Gang Dong- won), who team up to save a young girl Young-shin (Park So-dam) that begins to exhibit one of the twelve manifestations of evil tracked by the Rosicrucrianism after a hit-and-run accident. True enough, Jang's film is the first of its kind to dabble in the 'occult', a genre typically associated with Western cinema for both cultural and historical reasons. You wouldn't normally expect to see a full-blown exorcism in a South Korean movie, so consider us intrigued when we first heard of writer/ director Jang Jae-hyun's 'The Priests'. Reviewed by moviexclusive 7 /10 Gripping with moments of sheer terror, 'The Priests' is notable not just for being the first South Korean 'exorcism' film, but a perfectly worthy addition to the genre