It’s fascinating and confusing at the same time.
When we watch movies about vampires or zombies we have some context: like markings on the neck or how decease spreads, things like that. We have no such context for Korean mythology. So when a family member develops sores across their body and kills everyone in the house, we don’t go “ah, it’s a vampire!”. And there’s also what I guess some kind of folk believes or just puns, like the bizarre episode when the poacher is struck by a lightning. Or when shaman gets bird poop on his car.
In addition, there’s no separation between dream and reality I could notice. The policeman meets the vagrant girl, makes a call, turns the corner, meets the Japanese “vampire” and wakes up. But the call was real.
At the end, I felt like there’s not even cause-and-effect than one might expect with a curse, when one family member does something bad, and other family members get punished, but instead, they get punished even before “sin” has happened.
A couple more notes on Wailing, based mostly on this video:
The Japanese man is a tengu. Tengus are associated with crows and often pretend to be Buddhist monks.
The shaman is working with the tengu. This is confirmed in the deleted scene where they leave the town in the same car.
Also, a clue is that the shaman wears the same loincloth the Japanese man wears. No Korean would wear it.
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