A family curse intersects with a young woman’s quest to uncover her heritage in director Réi (Talas)’s new Tubi supernatural thriller, Death Name.
Written by Regina Kim, the film follows College student Sophie Park (Amy Keum) who decides to embrace her culture only to awaken a dormant entity intent on hunting the female members of her family line.
Things begin innocuously when Sophie transfers to a larger school with a highly visible Korean Student Association and takes a Korean history elective with Professor Lee (Desirée Mee Jung). It’s clear that Sophie’s family is unconventional (ie, more American than Korean) because she doesn’t speak the language, eat much Korean food, and, most significantly, she doesn’t know her Korean name.
As she learns about Korea’s complicated history with Japan in class, Sophie is also made to answer for her lack of cultural awareness by her combative roommate – Ari (Alice Bang) – who accuses Sophie of treating their culture like a fad to hop on. This prompts Sophie to question her parents, Gabriel (Joseph Lim Kim) and Kelly (Eliza Shin), for information, but she’s routinely blocked by her Grandmother (Vana Kim), who becomes increasingly angry and upset.
Still, things mostly seem to be going Sophie’s way: she meets a cute boy, Jun (Kevin Woo), in the campus bar, and they quickly begin dating; and aside from Ari’s cold shoulder, she’s making friends in the KSA.
Things take a turn, however, when Sophie brings Jun home to meet the family, and Grandma reacts badly. Kim’s screenplay establishes early on that Grandma has dementia and her condition is worsening, but it’s not hard to piece together what’s going on between Jun’s “too good to be true” persona and the black and white prologue set in 1960s Korea featuring two women threatened by a mysterious man in a wide-brimmed hat.
That’s Death Name’s biggest issue overall: the story is extremely obvious and predictable. Credit the film for not dragging its heels that Jun is duplicitous, but throughout Death Name, the audience is always one, two, or even three steps ahead of Sophie. Considering the title and the frequent clues about the power of names, it’s extremely evident where the story is headed, but it takes forever for Sophie to catch on, to the point that the rising action in the second act feels unnecessarily protracted and laborious.
On the plus side, the cultural aspects of the film – from Japan’s colonial history with Korea to the details about the gwishin (a vengeful ghost) and the family genealogy books called Chokbos – feel distinct and intriguing. These unique elements help Death Name stand out in spite of its more clichéd and familiar story beats.
This also extends to the conflict between Sophie and Ari. Both Keum and Bang are quite good in their respective roles, and the film gets good mileage out of their differing approaches to being Korean. At one point, when the influencer suggests that Sophie is only pursuing her culture because it’s trendy, Sophie claps back about the struggles of being an immigrant. Sophie educates Ari about how her Grandma helped to pave the way to acceptance in the US for people like Ari. It’s an important discussion that plays into their respective character arcs as both women learn to accept and ultimately respect each other.
As for the look of the film, Réi and cinematographer Greg Hudgins bring a nice visual flair to the creepy moments and set pieces. There’s a great omniscient POV shot from Gabriel and Kelly’s second-story window as a shadow stalks after Sophie’s car when she drives away, and, later, it skitters down an embankment while she walks across campus.
The film’s stand-out set piece, however, is undoubtedly a sequence set in a private karaoke room. After Sophie freaks out over a hallucination of the wide-brimmed hat man in the video, she runs through the building, passing countless rooms that all feature Jun staring and reacting to her. It’s not a new visual, but it is really effective; between editor Imran Shaikh’s fast cutting and Keum’s desperate reactions, the moment really lands.
Ultimately, Death Name works best when it embraces its unique Korean cultural elements and mythology. The film’s narrative is relatively straightforward, and the audience being two steps ahead of Sophie’s investigation is a problem, but the technical elements and dedicated performances ensure the film is entertaining and watchable. Throw in a breezy 81-minute runtime, and that’s enough for a casual recommendation.
Death Name is now streaming on Tubi.
