PLOT SUMMARY: A monk is tasked with a mission to protect the world from an evil spirit that keeps jumping from one host to another.
Can evil truly be destroyed?
Ever since we were kids, we've read stories about monsters and people with wrong intentions and beastly characters. In the end, they were always, ALWAYS, defeated. That is what gave us hope and let us sleep at night knowing that if there was any danger from anything unholy and bad, the "GOOD" will come and defeat it.
Then we grow up, become more aware of the world and realize those stories were mere fairytales.
Evil is never destroyed. It can be subdued but can it really be defeated and destructed completely?
THE 8TH NIGHT Movie Plot
Eons ago, when Gods roamed the Earth, there were also demons who threatened humanity.
According to a legend stated in the intro of the movie, there was once a demon who threatened all of humanity. Lord Buddha realized the demon was too powerful to be destroyed. However, its powers lay in its eyes; one black and one red.
Lord Buddha managed to remove the eyes and separate them, hiding them in different directions, one east and one in the west.
The issue with the red eye was that it could only come back and reunite with the black eye only if it crossed a bridge of seven people with the Virgin Shaman being the ultimate step.
After the eyes were separated, the monster did go away but it wanted to return and lay waiting for the eyes to be reunited so he could wreak havoc on the world.
Years later, a professor excavated the box holding the eye but a research team found the box was made fairly recently and couldn't possibly belong to the era when Lord Buddha was on Earth. The professor is disgraced but he vows to get the red eye out one way or another.
He manages to open the box and the red eye comes out and the seven steps that lead to the other eye, and hence world destruction, is created.
At a monastery, a monk gets a premonition that the red eye has been released and that another monk, who left the monastery, is the only one who can help. He tells his student, Cheong-seok to go search for Park Jin-soo who is the one who can save the world. Cheong-seok has kept a vow of silence but when the elder dies, he decides to go on a journey to find Park Jin-soo. In his bag is the black eye in a box that he loses when he sees a pretty girl at the station called Ae-ran.
Cheong-seok finds his way to Park Jin-Soo's house but finds no one home. Park Jin-Soo is too busy being gruff and quiet at his job as a construction worker. When he reaches home after a long day, he finds Cheong-seok waiting. He feels bad for the boy and lets him and gives him dinner.
When he learns his master has died, he feels sad and also compelled to complete the errand bestowed upon him. But Cheong-seok refuses to be dismissed and wants to help him search for the virgin shaman who is in danger of being possessed and killed.
The red eye, meanwhile, has been jumping like crazy from one person to another and as it does, it leaves a trail of bodies, all of them blue and shrivelled.
The detective on the case is mystified and his earnest assistant tries to help but makes a couple of blunders and is about to get fired.
Cheong-seok bonds with Park Jin-soo and is so happy roaming around the city with him, that he breaks his vow of silence and indulges in ice creams.
Park and Cheong eventually come upon a house that belongs to the virgin shaman. That is what is written outside the house.
Inside, Cheong finds Ae-ran and believes he's found the girl who must be protected. But Park insists that she must be killed or she would be possessed by the red eye, kill more people and then die causing the red eye to complete its journey and reunite with the black eye.
Cheong finds Ae-ran cute and wants to protect her. He runs away with her and goes to a safe house.
The detective in the meantime finds an important clue: all the victims belonged to a group headed by the professor who killed himself. They were all those who wanted to commit suicide and then didn't. The detectives assistant wasn't part of that group but he did want to kill himself only to be saved by the detective.
He's the next to be possessed.
THE 8TH NIGHT Ending Explained with Spoilers!
At the safe house, Cheong is having a nice time when Park finds him and the truth is revealed. Ae-ran isn't the virgin shaman. She's a ghost who purposely tried to distract Cheong from finding the actual virgin shaman who is an older woman who lived in the house.
The detective has managed to get to the virgin Shaman after having followed Park who appeared suspicious to him. He talks to the woman who tells him his assistant was supposed to die and now the red eye is using him to complete the mission.
Park reunites with Cheong and they lay a trap for the detective's assistant who comes over only to reveal to Park that because he left the monastery, he is no longer responsible for the mission. Rather it was Cheong who is the actual caretaker.
More truths are revealed.
The reason Park is always so sullen is because his wife and kid were killed in a drunk driving accident. The woman who was driving the other car was Cheong's mother who also died. Cheong was adopted by the monks and now Park realizes he must make peace with his past and forgive Cheong's mother in order to save her son.
He is struck and dreams of Cheong as a little boy. Park goes over and smears markings on him. Cheong comes back to normal as the demon jumps into Park. Park instructs Cheong to kill him before the possession is complete. Cheong complies.
The world is saved.
Cheong takes the box with the eye and goes to a desert. There he sees Ae-ran who was adopted by the professor and made to sacrifice herself so her blood could be used to open the box. Apparently, the box opens with blood from depressed people.
Cheong releases Ae-ran's chains and she is able to leave and find peace.
The end.
This was an interesting movie with an interesting concept, but the mythology factor gets a bit confusing.
Scare scale: 3/5
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