Raven Haired Lady who lived down a well...

[Sam@Cult Labs]

Ok, this the the Asian Horror movie cliches thread. I go first.

Pale young girls with long black hair in their eyes, frequently water logged and always annoyed about something or other.



"Damn, I broke a nail"

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

2. The Disappointing US remake cliche

You just know that as soon as a well received Asian horror film is released, that the bland, pointless big studio remake starring the perky Hollywood C-list actress won't be far behind. The Ring, The Eye, The Grudge, A Tale of Two Sisters (among others) have all been fed into the Hollywood mincer.

[klownz]

Originally Posted by Sam@Cult Labs

Ok, this the the Asian Horror movie cliches thread. I go first.

Pale young girls with long black hair in their eyes, frequently water logged and always annoyed about something or other.

That isn't a cliche, its just how ghosts are depicted in Asian culture.

[suziginajackson]

Originally Posted by Sam@Cult Labs

Pale young girls with long black hair in their eyes, frequently water logged and always annoyed about something or other.

Originally Posted by klownz

That isn't a cliche, its just how ghosts are depicted in Asian culture.

"The biggest similarity and most recognizable aspect of the female ghost is her appearance. No matter what Southeast Asian country the movie comes from, the ghost looks the same—long black hair, hidden face, white dress/gown. The white clothing is traditional funeral garb for the dead so this is why they are almost always in white. The hair is a little more complex. The simplest explanation is that this is how the ghost was depicted in Kabuki Theater. The black wig let the audience know immediately who the character was. In fact the long hair has much deeper meanings. In folklore the hair was believed to have a magical quality to it, representing the spiritual essence of the person. Women typically wore their hair up while alive, mostly for practical reasons, and it was let down while preparing the body for the funeral. This may have released that powerful energy enabling a wronged woman to come back and seek revenge. Women while being seen as physically weaker than men, are also perceived as being spiritually stronger than men, thus the reason for (mostly) female ghosts. The weak woman who was abused in life can now exact her revenge in death. Long hair is also believed to represent the power of female sexuality which gives these ghosts incredible power after death, even though they were powerless in life.

The hair is also seen as some sort of organic mask, covering the face thus obliterating any past identity or personality of the woman the ghost may have been. The ghost is driven by very definite feelings but she has lost what made her human. There is no compassion, love or remorse. But is the female ghost just a faceless spirit with almost no connection to its lost humanity or is the ghost a compassionate villain? While the ghosts are generally driven by negative emotions and the need for revenge, those emotions come from a pain that a female audience can understand. While fearing the ghost we can also sympathize with the reasons for its rampage. We can even pity her at times. She represents pain, rejection, betrayal and loss—feelings the female audience can surely empathize with. In a much broader sense the female ghost also represents the social and political anxieties of the patriarchal societies that have spawned them. The repression of women still exists in countries like Japan and Korea—modern countries that you wouldn’t expect this kind of repression to exist. There is a fear in these patriarchal societies over what would happen if women escaped these bonds."

More information about the Asian ghost can be found here - | The Vengeful Feminine: “The Asian Female Ghost is a True Feminist” by Colleen Wanglund

[klownz]

Thanks for that link, I will read through it later, I dare say it will be far more interesting that what's on wikipidia