Exhuma

Perhaps the first thing that fades when living as an immigrant is one's connection to the "land." The foreign soil we stand on always feels unfamiliar, and the homeland where our ancestors are buried inevitably fades beyond distant memory as the years pass. Director Jang Jae-hyun's film Exhuma (2024) is precisely about this "land" and the invisible historical roots buried deep beneath it. Transcending a simple occult thriller, this work compels the diaspora generation—who live with physical and psychological distance from their homeland—to reflect on the pain harbored by our roots.

The film begins with the exhumation and relocation of an ancestral grave to cure a mysterious illness plaguing a wealthy Korean family living in Los Angeles, enlisting the help of a renowned Korean feng shui master (Choi Min-sik), an undertaker (Yoo Hai-jin), and two young shamans (Kim Go-eun, Lee Do-hyun). Interestingly, the seed of the tragedy sprouts from the life of an immigrant family that has lived abroad for generations. The uniquely Korean concept of myotbaram (grave wind)—the belief that an ill-placed ancestral grave brings misfortune to its descendants—bears a strange resemblance to the unconscious sense of indebtedness felt by immigrants: the feeling that no matter how physically far away we are, we can never be entirely free from our ancestors' history and karma.

The horror depicted in Exhuma differs from the evil spirits or simple jump scares of Western films. The movie meticulously weaves together traditional Korean pungsu-jiri (feng shui), shamanism, and the painful historical trauma of the Korean peninsula within its genre framework. In particular, the intense daesalgut (a blood sacrifice ritual) performed by the shaman Hwa-rim (Kim Go-eun) delivers a visually and auditorily overwhelming experience, while vividly portraying a ritual of appeasement (uiryeong) that untangles the knotted threads between the living and the dead.

What the characters dig up in the film is not merely a coffin. It is the historical scar of the Korean peninsula left by the Japanese colonial period, and the deeply festering sentiment of han that has been buried underground for generations. For Koreans, han goes beyond simple sorrow; it signifies a deeply knotted core of resentment and grief built up under oppression. The film does not look away from or cover up these scars; rather, it portrays the process of confronting them head-on, digging them up, and washing them away.

To those born and raised abroad, Korean shamanism or pungsu-jiri may seem somewhat unfamiliar, perhaps even like superstition. However, Exhuma peels back the outer layer of these strange rituals to pose fundamental questions: "Where do we come from?" and "What memories are buried in the land we stand on?" The film's message—that the present descendants can finally live whole lives only by healing the old scars of their ancestors—offers deep comfort and resonance to diaspora families experiencing invisible generational disconnects and identity confusion.

Exhuma is an excellent example of how the most indigenous Korean sentiments can be sublimated into a universal genre film that resonates with a global audience. For anyone wishing to listen to the deep breath of the homeland and the whispers of forgotten history, this film will leave a powerful, lingering impact that will not be easily forgotten.