questions about "A Tale of Two Sisters" -- spoiler ridden, beware
 

I just watched the movie and have some questions...maybe you guys can help me out. Some of this stuff would be completely explained if the deleted scenes in the movie hadn't been deleted (I don't have access to the deleted scenes, but read a summary of them sans dialogue)...but otherwise I have no clue






******** SPOILERS **********












1. When/where did they show that their mom had cancer? Maybe I missed it, but all I remember is seeing her in the pictures and then seeing her console Su-Yeon during that last flashback (and subsequently in the closet). By that same token, where did they show that the stepmom became her nurse?

2. where did they ever say that Su-mi was a schizophrenic? (other than the extras, which i don't have) I can see how she could have been coping with the trauma by creating delusions and fantasies to ease her guilt and grief, but unless I just wasn't paying attention, I don't remember where they made a firm statement about her having such a devastating mental disease as opposed to just being traumatically scarred.

2. During that dinner w/ the aunt/uncle, I assume it was Su-mi who was making all the conversation, hence why everyone else was all weirded-out and quiet...what I don't get is why the aunt/relative started freaking out...first off, it looked more like she was having a seizure rather than a psychotic episode of schizophrenia (which I'm fairly sure is cognitively limited, with no convulsions), secondly, if she did have a condition, likely her husband at least would know about it since she would have some sort of history (and thus they wouldn't be panicking trying to figure out what's wrong). I think it -might- have to do with how Su-mi's last words were "are you crazy?" which maybe just emotionally upset her so much she started choking. She started convulsing/choking before she had the apparently rat-poison covered pills...Topping it all off is her seeing the kid under the sink. That, I believe, is Su-yeon (who also gave Su-mi that first nightmare with the flopping hand, a scene Su-mi couldn't have witnessed, and thus also haunted the stepmom to death perhaps).

3. the hairclip the stepmom finds...I have no idea where it's from, how it got there, or what it means

Re: questions about "A Tale of Two Sisters" -- spoiler ridden, beware
 

I'll give it a shot... this is just what I got out of it - I could be wrong. They showed pictures of her sick and she just looked sick. The 'stepmom' was the nurse at first and then started having an affair with the father. As far as I know, no conversations took place to indicate this - it was all just kinda revealed as you watched. The ending confirmed (rather than revealed) stuff that you should've picked up on as you watched.

Su-mi had multiple personalities, schizophrenia is a different disease. Anyway - they didn't really say it, but the reveal was when she was after she had fought with the stepmom and dragged the sack through the house and all that and was then sitting on the couch and the real nurse/stepmom lady walked in and they were face to face... it was then that you realize (and if you're sharp, you caught on before that) that su-mi was both characters - they also showed some scenes in a sort of flashback where su-mi was doing the things that you had previously seen the stepmom doing... combing her hair in front of the mirror in the bedroom, taking pills, etc...

She didn't have a mental disease before her mother died I don't think - I think that just came about after she lost her sister and found out the circumstances behind it.

I never got the impression that there was anything wrong with the aunt/relative and that scene confused me as well. I didn't know what made her freak out. Best guess would be choking on food/epileptic seizure or something. Su Yeon was a ghost.

I believe there is a signifigance to it, but I don't remember what. Broken piece of something? I'd have to watch the film again.

What DVD did you get of it? I wasn't aware there was a cut release.

Re: questions about "A Tale of Two Sisters" -- spoiler ridden, beware
 

On the special edition there's a deleted scene in which the stepmom and Su-Yeon is fighting in the kitchen and Su-Yeon loses the hairclip. The director explains that the scene was cut because it made things to obvious.

i didn't know the mom had cancer....