Review of A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) by Hardik P — 23 Jun 2011

The two stars are for the art direction, cinematography, and decent performances. Other than that, it's pretty awful. I'm convinced people say they like it just to act like they know what the hell happened. I love confusing films and taking them apart to see exactly what the director was going for, but there was no point here. I just sat through an hour and twenty minutes of a bitchy woman who wants to act like the girls mom after she died. The girls come back from a mental hospital, but their stepmom is making them crazy it seems. I hate films that rely on a twist. I was bored until the twist came, then the twist came and they work for the next 30 minutes trying to explain everything, but nothing is explained well enough to understand what we have seen.

**SPOILERS**.

OK, lets recap. First, the sister Su-Yeon is dead. Su-Mi can't accept that her sister is dead, which is why she went to a mental hospital. Got it. But wait, they keep moving. Su-Mi is actually the stepmom. But then the stepmom shows up. What? Lets try this one out. Su-Mi was seeing herself as the stepmom when she came back because she felt the guilt for killing her sister. Hmm, maybe? Either way, still had to sit so long until we get to the twist that I was getting bored. You can feel something boiling under the surface, and it just takes too long to get there. The house was perfect. One of the best decorated houses I have seen in a film since The Others. Other than that, can't really say much for A Tale of Two Sisters. I can't believe they actually felt the need to remake this in America.