Cheonyeo-gwisin

Origin

The iconographic origin is the combination of the Confucian conjugal worldview of the Joseon period (1392-1910) and Korean shamanism. Joseon Confucianism prescribed the Three Followings (samjong-jido — following father, husband, then son) as the female lifecourse, and the belief settled that the unmarried woman, having no descendant to perform ancestral rites, becomes after death a wandering ownerless spirit (mujugohon) drifting in the nine springs. The shamanic Korean belief that the spirit harbouring han cannot depart the world of the living combined with this to produce the decisive origin of Cheonyeo-gwisin iconography. The decisive literary canon is the late-Joseon classical Chinese novel The Story of Janghwa and Hongnyeon (Janghwa Hongnyeon-jeon) of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: in Cheolsan, Pyeongan Province, the daughters Janghwa and Hongnyeon of Bae Mu-yong, after the death of their mother and the arrival of the stepmother Heo, are falsely accused — Janghwa is killed and Hongnyeon takes her own life — and the two Cheonyeo-gwisin appear in succession before the new magistrate of Cheolsan, who, in the figure of Jeong Dong-u, resolves the case and grants their grievance dissolution. The classical Chinese text compiled around 1818 by Pak Jae-hyeong and the late nineteenth-century Korean vernacular editions are the Joseon canon, and the scholarly view (Im Hyeong-taek, Im Jae-hae) that the work is based on a real seventeenth-century incident in Cheolsan, Pyeongan Province is the consensus. The late-fifteenth-century Yongjae Chonghwa of Seong Hyeon (1439-1504), the sixteenth-century Paegwan Japgi of Eo Suk-gwon, and the early-nineteenth-century anonymous Cheonggu Yadam systematise Cheonyeo-gwisin folklore in the Joseon compendia.

Features

• White mourning robe (sobok) and long, untied black hair
• Pale bloodless face and sorrowful eyes
• Deep han of marriage and bonds left unfulfilled
• The yearning for one who will recognise the han
• Not indiscriminate malice but an appeal of grievance
• Decisive iconography of nirvana through haewon (resolution of grievance)

Stories

The classical Chinese novel The Story of Janghwa and Hongnyeon and the oral folktales of the Joseon period established the literary canon of the Cheonyeo-gwisin, and the 1969 film The Public Cemetery under the Moon (Wolha-ui Gongdong Myoji) directed by Kwon Cheol-hwi, the founding work of Korean horror cinema, established the cinematic visual canon. From the first broadcast in July 1977 of the KBS 1TV anthology series Legends of the Hometown until 1996, the annual summer Cheonyeo-gwisin special — white mourning robe, untied long black hair, pale face, blood-rimmed lips — established the decisive visual canon of Korean horror television. Park Ki-hyung's film Whispering Corridors (Yeogo Goedam), released on 30 May 1998 (starring Lee Mi-yeon and Kim Gyu-ri) — in which the spirit of a student who has committed suicide haunts a girls' high school — became the decisive canon of Korean K-horror, and Kim Tae-yong's 1999 sequel Memento Mori (starring Park Ye-jin and Lee Young-jin) followed. Kim Jee-woon's film A Tale of Two Sisters (Janghwa, Hongnyeon), released on 13 June 2003 (starring Im Soo-jung, Moon Geun-young, and Yeom Jeong-a) — a modern adaptation of the seventeenth-century Janghwa Hongnyeon-jeon — became the opening film of the Busan International Film Festival and completed the decisive canon of Korean horror; the Warner Brothers Hollywood remake The Uninvited (released 2009) established the global canon. The 2010 tvN series Gumiho: Tale of the Fox's Child and Na Hong-jin's 2016 film The Wailing extended the twenty-first-century Cheonyeo-gwisin canon.

Weakness

The Cheonyeo-gwisin's weaknesses are: (1) haewon (the resolution of grievance) — since the seventeenth-century Janghwa Hongnyeon-jeon canon, the Cheonyeo-gwisin departs to nirvana without resentment the moment her han is revealed and resolved, the decisive weakness, the core of Korean shamanism's haewon doctrine; (2) empathic recognition of han — unlike the Japanese vengeful spirit who spreads indiscriminate curses, the canon is that the Cheonyeo-gwisin softens before a sincere person who recognises and would resolve her han, a Korean emotional canon; (3) appeal to truth and justice — like Magistrate Jeong Dong-u of Janghwa Hongnyeon-jeon, the canon that the Cheonyeo-gwisin weakens before a listener who hears her story and realises justice; (4) sacred talismans and shamanic rite — Korean shamanic canon that the spirit-resolution rite (jin-ogi-gut) of the female shaman (mudang) and talismans pacify the Cheonyeo-gwisin; (5) the cock-crow at dawn — Korean folkloric canon that the nocturnal Cheonyeo-gwisin vanishes instantly when the rooster crows; (6) posthumous marriage (yeonghon gyeolhon) — the canonical Korean shamanic weakness that the rite of yeonghon gyeolhon (myeonghon, marriage of souls) marries the unmarried Cheonyeo-gwisin to another unmarried departed soul posthumously, resolving her grievance and sending her away. In Kim Jee-woon's 2003 A Tale of Two Sisters, the decisive finale of Korean horror became canonical when the sisters' story is revealed and the truth comes out.

Cultural Significance

The Cheonyeo-gwisin is not merely a horror icon but the canonical iconographic figure of Korean culture, in which the female oppression of Joseon Confucian society and the haewon doctrine of Korean shamanism are condensed. As a product of the Joseon Confucian systems of female oppression — the Three Followings, the Seven Grounds for Divorce — the socio-institutional violence that the unmarried woman would not be saved even after death and would wander congealed into the Cheonyeo-gwisin iconography. From the Korean folklorist Son Jin-tae's (1900-?) 1942 Researches on Korean Folktales, which analysed the Cheonyeo-gwisin as the decisive case of the combination of Korean shamanism and Confucianism, Kim Yeol-gyu's (1932-2013) 1988 The Mythology of the Korean People and Im Jae-hae's 1996 The World of Korean Folklore and Tradition established the folkloristic canon. The global box-office of Park Ki-hyung's 1998 Whispering Corridors and Kim Jee-woon's 2003 A Tale of Two Sisters was the decisive event of the establishment of Korean K-horror canon: their reception at the 1999 Tokyo International Film Festival and the 2003 Busan International Film Festival was the decisive event by which Korean horror became global canon. The 2007 Warner Brothers Hollywood remake The Uninvited (2009) is the first case of K-horror entering an American major-studio remake, and Na Hong-jin's 2016 The Wailing, invited to the non-competition section of the Cannes Film Festival, expanded the global canon of Korean horror. Since 2020, the Korean horror series Sell (2021), Hellbound (2021), and All of Us Are Dead (2022) on Netflix are cases of the digital-age adaptation of Cheonyeo-gwisin iconography.

In Popular Culture

Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms, Kim Hyeon Gamho (1281) — etymological precursor of female vengeful spiritYongjae Chonghwa (late fifteenth century) — early-Joseon Cheonyeo-gwisin folkloreCheonggu Yadam (early nineteenth century) — late-Joseon Cheonyeo-gwisin canonThe Story of Janghwa and Hongnyeon (Janghwa Hongnyeon-jeon, seventeenth-eighteenth century) — decisive literary canon of Cheonyeo-gwisinKwon Cheol-hwi, The Public Cemetery under the Moon (1969) — origin of the Korean horror film Cheonyeo-gwisinKBS Legends of the Hometown (1977-1996) — decisive visual canon of Korean horror televisionPark Ki-hyung, Whispering Corridors (1998) — decisive canon of K-horrorKim Jee-woon, A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) — decisive twenty-first-century Korean horror canonNa Hong-jin, The Wailing (2016) — Cannes Film Festival global canon of Korean horror