![]() In this tradition, shamans function as intermediaries between the physical and the spiritual world or the natural and supernatural world. Shamanism is a spiritual and healing tradition found in cultures around the world. It marries and homogenises the horror film traditions of Thailand and South Korea. The Medium is a tremendously exotic and indigenous experience of Southeast Asian shamanism. This latest addition to the Asian horror is an award-winning feature that premiered at the 25th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival. Based on an original story developed by Korea’s Na Hong-jin, the visionary auteur behind The Wailing, The Yellow Sea, and The Chaser, The Medium (aka Rang Zong) is a bizarre and horrifying saga of demonic possession that centres around the belief in shamanism practised in the northeastern part of Thailand. He still manages to land many a blow in that pummeling third act, so many he’d win it by decision if he hadn’t bloodied and bludgeoned us almost senseless already.The Medium Movie Ending Explained & Themes Analyzed:The Medium (2021) is a Thai-South Korean supernatural-horror film that marks the return of filmmaker Banjong Pisanthanakun to straight horror after a couple of romances after his directorial career launched with the supernatural thriller Shutter (2004). Writer-director Pisanthanakun shows us more than we need to see, and can’t figure out a quick, chilling exit, so he drags things out in a movie that has a few too many langours in its action beats early on. Gulmongkolpech fearlessly takes this character to depths and depravity that should make one and all who are trying to “save” Mink might be tempted to wonder if holly grows in Thailand in a size appropriate for making stakes. There is so much here that a reasonable actress might flinch at or protest - not because its degrading, just that it’s so “out there” as to leave her literally exposed. This is as fierce and alarming a performance as I’ve seen in many an exorcism/demonic possession movie. ![]() And Utoomma’s panicked shaman goddess and Yankittakhan’s fiercely loyal but staggered mother are impressive.īut Gulmongkolpech goes at the madness of Mink hammer and tong. This thriller only goes as far as its leading ladies can take it. That’s when the shaman Shanti ( Boonsong Nakphoo) joins the fray. Nim starts to think she needs reinforcements. She brakes down, chasing and hitting the film crew, afterwards mortified and terrified at what she’s experiencing. She flips out, all dressed in a white gown, on a float at the town’s Christmas parade. ![]() Mink’s tirades start with incidents at work and hissed “I hope you all DIE” threats. “Have you been having nightmares,” she asks Mink (in Thai with English subtitles)? “Have you heard someone calling you?” And the one following Nim sees her growing concern, and then her doubts about what being be going on with her niece. When Nio’s surviving daughter, 20something Mink ( Narilya Gulmongkolpech) starts acting “weird,” so odd that her friends and family cell-phone record her lashing out, reverting to childhood at an indoor playground (shoving and hurting the children) and other episodes.Īnd let’s not get into what the CCTV camera caught her up to after-hours at the office.Īnother film crew starts to follow her. The viewer has just enough time to mutter “Uh oh,” after learning Nio’s husband just died…and that her son died under mysterious circumstances some time earlier. ![]() But Nio wanted to marry, and converted to Christianity to dodge this demanding obligation. Her sister Nio ( Sirani Yankittikan) is the one who first caught “Shaman fever” and displayed the signs that she would take over from their grandmother. Nim ( Sawanee Utoomma) hears people’s problems, helps them bury their dead and sometimes provides healing spells or incense thanks to her connection to a revered spirit, captured in statue form in a local cave.Īs the crew follows her through her rituals and routines, Nim reveals she reluctantly accepted the call. The mockumentary element in writer-director Banjong Pisanthanakun’s film (working from an original story concocted by others) is that a Thai film crew has shown up among the mountain Isan people to make “Shaman Bloodline,” a film about the local Shaman Goddess of Ba Yan, a village spiritual advisor/healer role fulfilled by the same family for generations. Well, that and sights and sounds of a documentary camera being chased, screaming and weeping, scared out of their wits. Even as it’s going over-the-top for that climax, it pulls you to the edge of your seat with a ticking clock exorcism countdown that may be the cleverest touch of all. “ The Medium” goes on too long, repeats itself often enough for you to notice and travels so far over the top for its finale that it’s practically bathed in blood.īut this chilling mockumentary from Thailand is one of the most harrowing horror films of the year. ![]()
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