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To aid in this analysis, focus will be drawn on three films that have undertones of criticism of this particular educational system. These series are collectively known as the Yeogo Goedam I,II and III. Whispering Corridors is a series containing five movies that was first released on the 30th of May, in the year 1998. Being horror by genre, it came at a time when horror was not exactly popular and the teen films had dwindled to non-existence. The cast consisted of new actresses and actors save for a single who actor who played the part of a teacher.

Whispering Corridors took a different turn from the conventions of serried films. This is because all of the each of the series is independent from the previous ones and the characters are new in all of them. The common thing between them all is that they are all horror and they are all casted in an all-girls boarding school. Despite the fact that it came as a far cry from the popular genres at the time, the audience’s response to it especially the teenage response, was very great. It was not released during the summer vacation as per the norms of teen movies, the reaction then had something to do with the context of the film.

It did well in the box office having reached 2.5 million admissions. This success came after the producer, OH Ki-Min, had been turned down by over en production companies who did not see the place of horror in the Korean Film industry. It was finally accepted by Cine 2000 and Cinema Services who went against the odds of the industry and produced what turned out to be a benchmark for subsequent horror films in Korea. Notable though is the film’s lack of extreme emphasis on horror itself much as it is presented as a horror movie.

What they do is employ the horror undertones as a channel of conveying various issues that affect the Korean society. This paper will focus on the first three of the series, that is, Whispering Corridors 1 (Yogo Kwedam I), Memento Mori (Yogo Kwedam II) and Whispering Stairs (Yogo Kwedam II). Whispering Corridors 1, also known as Yeogo Goedam, touches on important social and cultural issues in its storyline, especially issues that border the unique South Korean educational system. The fact that it depicted the educational system in negative light made the film be subjected to rigorous censorship.

After the ban on the censorship it was released for public viewing. It of course caused a stir upon its release but at the end of the day the message that was intended had been put across. The plot of the movie focuses on three platonic relationships between the girls who have some affiliation with the school, Jookran High School For Girls. The first friendship ties are between Hur and Jin-Ju. The second bunch of friends is Ji-Oh and Jae-Yi. The other one is between So-Young and Jung-Sook. So-Young and Jung-Sook, however, have such a strained relationship that they are not in speaking terms with each other.

The movie opens with a female teacher at the school, Park, is talking on phone with another teacher about a discovery she has made on a former student of the school, Jin-Ju. Mrs Park has been nicknamed Old Fox due to her unkind treatment of the students who attended the school. She says that Jin-Ju, apparently dead, is back. She however gets killed before she gives a full statement of her discovery. Her body is discovered by three students, Jae-Yi, Jung-Sook and Ji-Oh, the following day. The administration