Arang

Arang tries to mix a ghost story with a police investigation, and it mostly works as a mystery. The plot starts with a man dying after getting a creepy email linked to a haunted place. Two detectives, Min and Lee, investigate and discover all the victims were old friends connected to a crime from ten years ago. The case slowly turns supernatural as they dig deeper.

The story feels very familiar if you’ve seen The Ring or The Grudge. Long black hair, cursed technology, vengeful ghosts. It’s all been done before. But I stayed interested because the mystery part is handled well. The detectives actually investigate with logic instead of just running from ghosts. There are some good twists at the end that add emotion and make you think about guilt and revenge.

The two leads are solid. Lee Dong-wook plays the rookie cop nicely, and Song Yoon-ah gives Min a tough but damaged feel. I appreciated that their partnership stayed professional without any forced romance. That made their teamwork feel real and kept the focus on the case.

The horror itself is the weakest part. The scares are predictable and copied from better movies. Ghosts in mirrors, dripping water, haunted websites. None of it scared me. The visuals look good and the effects are clean, but it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. The movie looks nice overall with a mix of bright and dark scenes, but style can’t make up for weak scares.

What kept me watching was the mystery, not the horror. The story builds tension and the ending ties everything together in an emotional way. It touches on forgiveness and whether revenge is really justice. Those ideas give the film a bit more depth than typical ghost movies.

Overall, Arang is average but watchable. It has a solid mystery and some thoughtful moments, but the horror is too generic to be scary. I’d say it works better as a dark detective story than as a horror film. If you go in expecting that, you might enjoy it.