Doll Master

Doll Master
Theatrical poster
Hangul	인형사
Hanja	人形師
RR	Inhyeongsa
MR	Inhyŏngsa
Directed by	Jeong Yong-gi
Produced by	Han Man-taek
Written by	Jeong Yong-gi
Starring	Im Eun-gyeong Kim Yu-Mi Ok Ji-young
Cinematography	Jo Cheol-ho
Editing by	Nam Na-yeong
Distributed by	Lotte Cinema Cineclick Asia
Release date(s)	July 30, 2004 (2004-07-30)
Running time	90 min.
Country	South Korea
Language	Korean

The Doll Master (인형사, Inhyeongsa) is a 2004 South Korean horror film directed by Yong-ki Jeong.

Plot

The Doll Master begins 60 years ago in a countryside during the Japanese occupation of Korea. A narrator tells the tale of a doll maker who fell in love with a woman in a red kimono. He makes a doll as a gesture of his love. It works and the woman falls in love with him as well. Later in a tragic set of circumstances, the woman is found murdered. All the people blame the doll master. He is eventually arrested and killed by vigilantes in the woods. The doll, not content to be without her maker, sits by his grave for all time, apparently mourning his loss as if alive. Fast-forward to the present, where a group of strangers from the city have arrived at an isolated art museum in the middle of nowhere, with the promise of dolls to be made in their image. Of the group, there is Hae-mi, a sculptor; Tae-seong, a male model looking for work; Young-ha, a woman who claims she talks to her Demian doll; Jeong-gi, a photographer and Sun-young, a ditzy high school student. The group is greeted by the museum’s curator, who introduces them to the museum’s dolls, as well as a paraplegic doll maker. After Yeong-ha's doll has its head separated from its body, the guest list starts slimming down fast. All the clues point to a mysterious, young woman, Mi-na from the nearby village who happens to be the doll that Hae-Mi once owned as a child.

Dolls

Although the story states that the dolls are decades old, many of them that were used in the film are the modern ball-jointed dolls. For example, the dolls, Mi-na and Demian, are actually part of the "Event" series of "The AI" dolls from Custom House, a Korean doll company.