Exhuma * * *

The Exhuma team wonder if they're in a dead-end job.

Exhuma is a film that starts off strong and gets better but then degenerates from an intriguing and atmospheric supernatural drama to something like a Korean version of  Ghostbusters. 

We meet our young shaman heroes,  Hwa-rim and Bong-gil as they are flying from Korea to America to meet a rich Korean-American family who have a new baby won't stop crying (I'm sure many a parent with a memory will think, "So what?")  But this is serious.  It has no physical pain but something else is distressing the poor wee thing.  So much that it has to be sedated nearly all the time. In their "professional opinion", Hwa-rim and Bong-gil determine that the child is being tormented by the unsettled spirit of an ancestor.

From there things get pretty interesting as our good looking young shamans fly back to Korea and meet up with colleagues who are a couple of older guys. These guys are funeral directors and specialise in Feng-shui, to make sure the body is laid to rest in the right place.

The four agree that there is only way to get the baby settled and that is to exhume grandma and put her to rest again.  And this time do the job properly!

So the first exhumation begins and its quite a ritual as the four characters each apply their own skills. They lay out the bones and recognise something is missing, including her false teeth (This film doesn't lack humour).  They put her together again.  That ought to fix it.  But it doesn't.

Then they learn of another one buried up in the mountains away from the prescribed graveyards. It's a much older family member. This exhumation requires a bit of a ceremony with braying and slaughtering a chicken and drumming and dancing.  Actually its a really good scene. Creepy and kind of interesting. Enough drama to convince you they're onto something.  

The coffin comes out and it's a ripper. The kind of coffin that is reserved for royalty.  One of the poor workers gets bitten by a snake (more to come out of that later).  In the meantime, the instructions are clear: "Do Not Open!"  They can't cremate it till the next day because it's raining and apparently it's bad luck to cremate on a rainy day.  So they park it in a mortuary where someone decides to ignore the "Do Not Open" instructions.  Well, that really lets the cat out the bag - or the ghost out the coffin. 

Meanwhile they discover other things like the man in the coffin had something to do with a local monastery that specialise in Feng-shui. But all this other stuff gets into the mix about ancient Korean supernatural beliefs and superstitions. All quite interesting actually.  Poor Bong-gil has to let the spirit possess him, then Hwa-rim interrogates him.  All part of the job. 

But then this old political stuff gets into the mix - and this really is overkill to the point of self ruin. Now the story becomes about the time Korea was annexed to Japan.  Pretty soon we are dealing with a monster sized Japanese Warrior, stomping around the place. It becomes so stupid and unscary you just have to laugh. 

So, in summary, the good is really good and worth watching, but be prepared for the worse, because it will come, and there is plenty of it.