Voice

Title - the Voice (Ghost School 4, the whispering corridor 4)
Language - Korean
Genre - Horror, Ghost

The voice is number four in the Ghost school/Whispering Corridors film series and this time around we follow students in a music class and school radio.  As with the previous films we primarily follow two friends This time they do appear to be just friends and not lovers.  The two primary characters are:

Sun-Min who is the lead anchor for the school radio station

Young-Eon - the top singer at the school

there are also three other secondary characters of the music teacher, Hyo-Jung and Cho-Ah

The Voice is split over four days and a few flashbacks but is shot in a nonlinear fashion in a similar vein as the second film Memento Mori although I did find that it is easier to follow.

The film starts with Young-Eon singing and Sun-Min recording her.  The pair are supposed to be going out with some friends but Young-Eon stays behind to practice some more.  After Sun-Min leaves someone else enters the music room, Young- Eon can not see her but she is chased out of the room towards the elevator.  She turns to try to see who her attacker is but is hit in the throat by a page of sheet music.  Young-Eon then wakes up in the music room.  Thinking it was all a dream Young-Eon heads through the school but she soon realizes that no one seems to see her.  She finally realizes what has happened when she stands under a leak in the roof, the dips just pass through her.  Young-Eon tries to go for help but finds that she can not leave the school, whenever she attempts to go through the exit she is turned around and finds herself back in the lobby

Whilst this is going on the school day has started, Sun-Min is annoyed that young-eon has not replied to any of her calls but she becomes concerned that Young-Eon has not turned up for any of her classes.  Sum-Min goes to the reception to see if Young-Eon has contacted them about not being in and she is told that it is the anniversary of Young-Eon’s mothers death.  The faculty have assumed that Young-Eon is paying her respects.

Whilst trying to find out what is happening Young-Eon is approached by another ghost, Hyo-Jung who starts telling her that it was Young-Eon who pushed her mother off the hospital roof and that she had also killed the previous music teacher.  Young-Eon doesn't believe this and runs of.  She finds Sun-Min and discovers that she can hear her, Young-Min manages to convince Sun-Min that she is real and asks for her help.

Sun-Min meets another student, Cho-Ah who can hear not just Young-Eon but other ghosts that are in the school but, instead of helping helping Sum-Min she advises her to not to pay attention to Young-Eon.  At first  Sun-Min ignores this advice and tries to help Young-Eon to find out who Hyo-Jung was and why she is tormenting Young-Eon.  Things start to get strange and Sun-Min goes back to Cho-Ah for help.

One of the main themes of the Voice is coping with the death of a friend and letting of of them.  Cho-Ah tells Sun-Min that she is the one holding Young-Eon back and stopping her from going to the afterlife.  She also tells her that a ghost will be able to communicate with someone they has a strong bond with in life but, if that person stops listening to them then they will lose this link.  as the film progresses Sun-Min goes from the comfort that Young-Eon’s ghost givers her to realizing that she is better off without her.

A second theme seems to be individualism or personality.  We have Sun-Min not only growing as she copes with the loss of Young-Eon but making new friends.  We also have  Young-Eon’s struggle as she tries to discover the truth in what Hyo-Jung tells her.  we are told that a ghost only remembers what it wants even if it’s not true so we are never sure if Young-Eon did kill the people we're told she did. The distress that the wrong memories cause, in the living and the ghost’s is shown by Young-Eon talking about the times when Sun-Min went to her house, this never happened and it does make Sun-Min doubt if the ghost is Young-Eon

The voice is different than the previous 3 films in that we know who the (main) with in ths in the first 10 minutes if the film but as the film goes on the ghost gets less and less of a problem.  the other 3 films do not introduce the ghost to us properly until the second half of the film with their threat growing until the point where it needs to be stopped.

As i said earlier The Voice is not linear which can make it sometimes hard to follow.  Although it did seem to flow easier than Memento Mori the story was broken up by the credits which started to roll on a couple of occasions. I think this was meant to help separate out the days but it did lead to some confusion.  

There seemed to be a few unanswered plot points in the film and for the most i think it was done deliberately as they really didn't matter to Sun-Min in the end.  The topic of the voice seemed unresolved.  Sun-Min discovered that Young-Eon & Hyo-Jung both had the same singing voice, it was even mentioned that Young-Eon sounded differently when she sang before she was killed, at the end of the film we see Young-Eon pleading with Sun-Min to help her find out what it means but by this point Sun-Min had already started to ignore her and left her in the corridor leaving a plot point that was referred to quit a bit just left open.  This does push home how much Sun-Min has change and how the problems of the ghost have nothing to do with her.

We also can’t really know who killed the music teacher or Young-Eons mother.  Even at the end when we see Young-Eon and Sun-Min discover the teacher we have already been told that it it a case of the time of Wolves and dogs, in this context meaning that you still can’t tell the truth from the lies (of fake memories). The only things that seem certain is that Hyo-Jung was jealous of Young-Eon’s relationship with the music teacher and there is no evidence that Young-Eon was any way in love with her.  All these false memories and lie’s  may just be a way to get Sun-min to keep talking to Young-Eon.  In the beginning Sun-Min is talking to Young-Eon to help get over her disappearance, at one point she even says that she doesn't believe that Young-eon is dead because there is no body but, as time goes on and especially after the body is found Sun-Min starts to go back to normal life so Young-Eon tries to pull her into the mysteries (and danger) to keep her with her.

The dangers that Young-Eon leads Sun-min to are also symbolic.  The longer Sum-Min is talking to Young-Eon the more impact it has on her real life, this is show by the reaction she gets when she is talking to Young-Eon.  Most of the time Hyo-Jung interacts with Sun-Min also seem to be an attempt to stop her from talking to Young-Eon and push her away from the ghosts.

The voice is a good watch, the fact it brakes down the days  helps with the non linear nature  of the film and the fact that half the things that happen don’t really lead anywhere means that you don’t miss much.  I think a second  viewing may uncover more things but the film is enjoyable any way.