Memento Mori

When Park Ki-Hyung declined to make a sequel to his surprise hit Whispering Corridors, producer Oh had the smart idea of offering the challenge to two recent graduates from the Korean Film Academy who had already collaborated on the excellent shorts Seventeen and Pale Blue Dot. They came up with a very different take on a haunting in a high school for girls: a convoluted tale of teenage lesbian feelings, telepathy, sexual rivalry, spirit possession and unwanted pregnancy. Intricately structured and made with great technical brio, the film falters in its final reel in which the entire school is terrorised by the spirit of a wronged girl driven to suicide. But when it forgets about grandstanding and concentrates on the intimate feelings of its protagonists, it's quite something.