BiFan 2024 Review: THE TENANTS, Freaky Korean Real Estate Horror Allegory Lingers in the Mind


Real estate woes, job security anxiety and social inequality, all neatly packed into a metaphorical dystopia. No doubt about it, The Tenants is definitely a Korean film. Yet by providing a novel twist on its elements and staying true to its allegorical narrative, this brooding black-and-white parable stands out as a compelling sophomore feature from director Yoon Eun-gyeong.

Following its premiere late last year at the Singapore International Film Festival, Yoon's film circles its way back for its local premiere in Bucheon, where its clear but concerning message should hit the hardest.

Shin-dong is a young man just like many others in Korea. He has worked tooth and nail to land himself a job at a company, but he's still barely making ends meet while working himself to the bone to prove himself at his company.

Already struggling to pay rent, he discovers that his landlord is about to kick him out and he learns from a friend that there is a real estate loophole that bars him from doing so, so long as he manages to sign a sub-letter in time. He finds one - two in fact - but is a little taken aback when the strange newlywed couple that signs the agreement moves into his bathroom.

Thus begins their bizarre co-habitation. Things get a lot stranger when the sub-letters get their own mysterious sub-letter. Things come to a head when Shin-dong gets a rare opportunity to transfer to a new town with better benefits but the only way he can capitalise on it is if he can get all of his sub-letters to sign a release and move out before the deadline is up.

This situation may sound absurd but it is only a slight exaggeration of how real estate can work in Korea. Property is often transferred generationally and people move very frequently, so it isn't unheard of for people to be suddenly kicked out of their homes for the landlord's personal reasons.

The cleverness of Yoon's conceit is that Shin-dong begins as the oppressed character, but once things start to turn around for him, he suddenly finds himself in a similar position to his own landlord. All it takes is a slight change of circumstance for your problem to become someone else's.

The allegory does not stop there but revealing anything else here would surely spoil the surprise. Suffice it to say that the story burrows deeper and crawls into darker and more horrifying places before all is said and done.

In hewing so close to its central allegory, some may cry foul, opining that the film does so at the expense of conventional narrative logic. The Tenants, however, is comfortably operating in a more Lynchpin narrative mode. All the pieces of the puzzle are there but Yoon doesn't let logic piece them together for us.

There are plenty of surreal images and strange turns of events to ponder over after the credits have rolled and as they roll around in your mind, they turn into lingering ideas that tease the imagination. This is a strong second outing for Yoon, which handily surpasses her atmospheric but uneven indie horror debut, Hotel Lake.