Seok-tae is a young gangster who betrays his gang, running away with a stash of priceless diamonds. However, a car accident strands him in the remote village of Sisily, where he comes across an eccentric family of farmers. At the same time, fellow gangster Yang-i manages to track down Seok-tae by tracing the location of his mobile phone, and he arrives in Sisily with a small group of thugs. However, something strange is going on in Sisily. It’s not just the weird locals, who all look like they are hiding some sinister plan. The village itself feels like it is haunted.
Outside of R-Point, 2004 was not a good year for Korean horror films. Therefore it was particularly appropriate that this parody appeared to give the Korean horror genre a malicious and well-deserved lampooning (while also poking fun at that other Korean staple, the gangster film). Although To Catch a Virgin Ghost may not possess the best sense of comic timing, its strength lies in its bizarre, creative screenplay that is filled with more twists and turns than the roads leading through Sisily. Playing with viewers’ expectations throughout, it is almost the end of the film before we can even figure out who the good guys and bad guys are.
Shin Jung-won’s debut feature is given a strong boost from the star presence of Im Chang-jung, the singer-turned-actor who has proved his comic abilities in such works as Sex Is Zero and Bet on My Disco. Im excels at playing outlandish characters whose all-too-human weaknesses are easy to identify with. He is joined by actress Im Eun-kyung, whose doll-like face and big eyes have made her the star of countless advertisements as well as the big-budget Resurrection of the Little Match Girl and comedy Conduct Zero. The two make for one of the most memorable onscreen combinations of 2004.