Sleep: a taut Korean thriller that leans into shamanistic and folkloric tradition

By Hyunseon Lee, SOAS, University of London

Sleep begins in the dead of the night, the opening credits roll accompanied only by the rhythmic sound of snoring. This sound is broken as a woman stirs to find her husband not beside her but sitting bolt upright on the end of the bed. As she turns on the light, he says in a deep and distant voice: “Someone’s inside.”

Jung Soo-jin (Jung Yu-mi) lives with her actor husband Oh Hyun-su (Lee Sun-kyun) and their dog Pepper in a typical, modern, urban Korean flat. The couple are expecting a baby and everything in their life seems to be perfectly normal – that is until this night. This eerie opening is Hyun-su’s first experience of parasomnia. He is talking and moving in his sleep with no memory of what he did when he wakes.

Sleep is the debut film from Korean director Jason Yu, a former assistant to the Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite, 2019). Told in three chapters, it’s a thriller following this couple as they try to work out what is causing Hyun-su’s parasomnia. As these opening moments show, it might take more than some sleep strips or medication to help Hyun-su. There is something else in their flat going bump in the night.

Drawing on Korean folkloric tradition and cultural ideas around shamanism Sleep is a gripping, beautifully shot supernatural thriller. Yu’s debut brings to the screen a new kind of shamanism, a religion and part of Korean culture that has been ignored and suppressed for hundreds of years, but is reportedly being embraced by a new young generation of believers thanks to social media.

Chapter one shows the everyday life of the happily married couple. Yu paints a picture of wedded bliss through close-up shots that show a typical morning. The breakfast lovingly prepared by Hyun-su for Soo-jin before she wakes, the flowers on the balcony, a well-organised diary, a large framed photograph of the couple.

https://youtu.be/XkSZRcbjkWA?si=2erchI7G2jNFj8HN

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