THE PIPER

Details

• Release Year: 2015
• Genre: Horror, Mystery, Suspense/Thriller
• Plot: In the 1950s after the Korean War, a gentle wandering piper with a limp, Woo-ryong, and his sick young son, Young-nam, are en-route by foot to Seoul through the central Korean highlands when they reach a remote village. The village chief allows Woo-ryong and his son to stay at his house. The piper shows the Chief an English-written note (given to him by an American soldier) that is the name of an American doctor at a hospital in Seoul who can treat Young-nam. The Chief agrees (he can’t read English either) but tells Woo-ryong not to tell anyone else the war is over. Woo-ryong is smitten by a villager called Mi-sook who lost her husband and child in the war. Woo-ryong quickly sees that the village is plagued by rats that do not fear humans or fall for traps and poisons. The chief explains they came to this leper village when they feared Chinese soldiers were approaching their old homes. But after being given shelter, they forced the lepers and their shaman into a cave under the pretext that the Chinese were coming. Later when they returned to the cave, they found the village shaman alive but all the lepers dead and being eaten by rats which then invaded the village. Woo-ryong volunteers to get rid of the vermin in exchange for a pig that will help pay for his son's medical treatment. He spreads a special powder across the village and goes to a nearby hilltop. Checking the wind direction he lights a very smokey fire that smothers the village in smoke. At the same time, Mi-sook, who has been forced by the chief to become the village’s new shaman begins her own purification ritual. Rats follow Woo-ryung's powder back to the cave and are sealed in. Mi-sook starts to fall in love with Woo-ryung due to his kind nature. His son even starts to call her 'mummy'. However, the chief privately threatens her about leaving the village. He then plots with his son, Nam-soo, to renege on rewarding the Piper for getting rid of the rats. They convince the male villagers that Woo-ryong is really a communist spy who brought the rats with him. At a village meeting, the chief says he is going to pay the piper but a dead cat is found. Proof the chief says that the rats are back. He holds up Woo-ryung's English note and says its spying material; it simply reads 'Kiss my ass, monkey' - no American doctor's name just a cruel joke. Woo-ryung reaches for the money but Nam-soo chops off two of his fingers with a knife. The villagers turn on Woo-ryung and Young-nam, even Mi-sook condemns them. But as the villagers get ready to throw them out, Mi-sook returns in a shamanic trance but with a self-inflicted stab wound in the stomach. She tells the villagers that on a day without sun they will all die and their children might live or die, repeating the prophecy made by the leper’s shaman just before she was burnt alive by the villagers. Mi-sook dies from her wounds. Before they leave, the Chief puts two poisoned rice-balls in Woo-ryung's knapsack. The injured piper falls asleep while his son sneaks back to the village to retrieve his father's pipe from the Chief's house. On the way back, Young-nam eats one of the poisoned rice-balls and dies. Woo-ryong sets out on a revenge. After burning his son's body on a funeral pyre that makes so much smoke it blocks out the sun, he covers himself in the special powder he used earlier to attract the rats and reopens the cave. He uses his two severed fingers as bait and starts playing his pipe to lead the rats back to the village where they devour all the adults including the chief and his son. Next morning only the villagers' children are alive, Woo-ryung plays his pipe and leads them to the cave where he trapped the rats. After sealing them all in, he turns and looks hard into the camera.
• Cast: Zach Aguilar, Woo-hee Chun, Christopher Hackney, Lee Joon, Sung-min Lee, Seung-Ryong Ryu, Goo Seung-Hyeon, Kim Kwang-tae
• Director: Kim Kwang-tae
• Runtime: 1:59
• Company: CJ Entertainment
• Media Format: Movie