• Welcome to the Devil May Cry Community Forum!

    We're a group of fans who are passionate about the Devil May Cry series and video gaming.

    Register Log in

So, what, with the white hair and all

berto

I Saw the Devil
Moderator
So.

As it stands everyone here knows the origins of Dante's hair color, don't pretend that you don't. There has been plenty of discussion on the subject since 2011, I'm sure you all get it by now. In case I'm sure there are many members who'd gladly let you know.

Anyway, story time:

A long while back I was talking asian dramas with a Korean girl at Old Navy and I brought up a show that I was going to try to watch called Faith- The Great Doctor. In the show's cast there was a character with white hair and so I asked her about it. She only said that in Korea it's romantic. White hair on a young person has a sense of romance to it (not amorous romance, I take it, rather 'idealized' romance).

It seems as though this is not something that is in itself spoken of out loud, it's simply one of those things that everyone knows but never spoken of or written about. You will find more non-asian people than anyone else writing about it, mostly because they are asking 'what's with the white hair in anime.' It doesn't seem taboo just something that no one talks about like why we Mexicans have sombreros and why they look the way they do; I'm sure there is a root to the origin of the cultural staples but the reality is the only people who question them are those who don't share the similar prospects in their culture. My step-father, for example is Columbian and can't for the life of him understand why we eat hot sauce so he questions it, he raises his eyebrow at it, and sometimes he mockes it.

Obviously I was doing some research into the matter but I was never planning on post those findings on this forum, there was just too much malice here for it to go without more than one person making unsolicited comments about me just been mad about the white hair. So, I kept it to myself and eventually deleted it.

Fast forward to a few days ago and I found some of the research links that I didn't delete in my bookmarks and here we are. I remember doing all that reading and googling and then I remembered why I didn't post it.

However it seems that all that is over now and I can tell you all about it without a bunch of twats derailing the discussion by been twats. Unfortunately this is only going to be part of what I found since some of the sites are either gone or I just don't know where they are. Hopefully, though, it'll be the majority of it that I present than what I can't show you any more because I either forgot what it was or just don't know how I found it.




I'll start with the oldest record I can find of any significance of white hair.

Hitomaro, an oral poet from the late 8th century, recited a poem at the funeral pyre of an unidentified young woman who had drowned. Whether accidental, suicidal, or murdered it was commonly believed that any one who died in similar manner, whether unnatural, accidental, or in a state of great passion, anger, jealousy, or fear would become evil spirits who would cause disease or even death. Now you know where the myth of Ju-on and the Grudge comes from.

In these situations a ritual called a tama-shizume, or chinkon-sai, would be performed to appease the spirit. This process was referred to as shizume (to appease, pacify). A funeral lament called a banka would be recited and the body cremated. The symbolism was that by burning the body the hair, which was black and indicative of fertility, would turn to smoke and become white, which meant that the person had gone through the lifecycle that they were denied.

In other words the implication is that black hair means not just youth but fertility while white hair indicates an end to that time. Also, unlike in most cultures we're familiar with, black is not the color associated with death in Japan, white is. This could be related to the principal of the hair color on a person since there is only black and white hair in Japan and black hair is representative of youth, vibrancy and fertility and white means and end to that (Japanese people of other hair color are excruciatingly rare, from what I know). I have no evidence to back that up, simply an observation I make.

Hitomaro also wanted to give the woman another symbolic return to fertility by burning her body so as to turn her into clouds and the clouds to rain where it would fall to the earth and give life to the land. A symbolism he hoped would appease the spirit.


Moving on to something else:

It is in Japan where we see most of the characters that fit the criteria of been both young and having white hair, at least in terms of what we see imported, Korea and China might have just as many that we never see. Most forms of media seem to have examples of this, whether anime, manga, tv dramas, music, literature, blah, blah, blah. Even in Kabuki there is a work called Ren Jishi, The Father and Son Shishi Lions. Tekken fans should know this one. In it there are two lion like creatures called Shishi who are father and son. The son is portrait with vibrant red hair and the father with white. Now, the reason you Tekken fans should know this one is because the tribe of the Shishi demands only the strong survive and so they throw their young to the precipice to test their strength and courage by climbing back up. Though not a young man it is an example of it's presence in the folklore of Japan. There is also other places here and there where you see it's presence across the folklore.

We are all mostly in agreement that this is something that Japan sees as a sign of the supernatural. It's what we have been told from those that know the culture better than us. Just the same, Japan is also where I had the hardest time finding concrete evidence of this outside their popular media. Yes, it can imply divinity, yes it can imply demonic nature, and yes, it can mean the character has an other worldly quality to them, a preternatural essence, as with Celtic mythology, I'll get back to this, but why they are given to these characters is a bit ambiguous, mostly because their pop culture has taken over the internet making it harder to find more traditional sources. For example, when I was doing the research a while back and I read once that Kaguya from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter had hair the color of the moon. In most cases she looks very traditionally Japanese, with long black hair, but it was also not rare for her to be portrait with white here and there do to her connection to the moon. Google Kaguya now and all you get is Naruto images of the character from the manga. F*%#ing jolly.

Anyway. Implying divinity with white hair is easy to correlate, white is the color of light so when a character has white hair do to divinity, well, it's kinda obvious. Even Buddha was said to have a single strand of white hair in his forehead that irradiated light and spread enlightenment to the world. Japan isn't the only place that assigned white hair as a sign of divinity, ether. The deer goddess in celtic myth, Sadv, and the goddess Fódla both sport the color, and in celtic myth the white hair also represents a connection to the supernatural. Chuma is the Slavic Goddess of Death. Khen-Pa, a buddhist figure who rides a white dog and controls heavenly demons. There is, of course, the Chinese and Korean examples here and there, and others in asia, I'm sure, but I did lose a lot of that research. There was one dude who rode a tiger but I don't remember where he was from, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't Chang Tao-ling, though.

Demonic or supernatural were a bit harder to find. Yes, white implies death. Death, supernatural, there is a connection, sure, but rarely outside of popular media do you find any stories of people like that fit the bill and to simply make connections with no evidence, well, not the most reliable way of examining things. However, I did find one article where the writer claimed that the gods of death (called shinigami) have been present figures in Japanese folklore and are represented as having red eyes and white hair. This has lead to their representation as such for a long time are are continued so in modern media. I think the implication is that if you ever come across a man or woman with white hair and red eyes you should probably be nice to them since they might be the one guiding your soul when you kick the bucket. This one, however, turned out to be hard to prove since this is the only instance I could find of this even been mentioned and nether games, anime, nor manga count.

That's something that I've found to be vague and varied depending on the source, by the way, that some renditions have different details. For example, the illustration in the books of Toriyama Sekien depicts a great deal of creatures like the Nure-Onna, the Jorōgumo, and the Yuki-Onna and all other Japanese folk creatures. In all the illustrations the beings are all represented with dark hair, if any. Move forward some time and look at the illustrations of Goujin Ishihara (God, I wish we could post pictures); Alot of the same creatures are illustrated with white hair in their heads, like the Nure-Onna and the Tenjou-sagari. That probably means that there isn't always a set appearance for all of these mythic figures, that they are often left to the artist to describe. Yes, the snake woman looks like a snake and a woman combined, but smaller details like hair color are often varied from artist to artist. Yuki-Onna is a good example of this. The snow woman is white from head to toe, from her dress to her extremely pale skin and with long black hair in a very traditional Japanese hair style fitting of the period. However, every now and then someone takes it a step further and makes her hair just as white as her skin and kimino and so often times it is the artist who determines this.

Of course there are a great deal of instances where this isn't the case and the creature has been specified to look a certain way, like that Ibaraki-doji from Watanabe no Tsuna who, for the most part, is always portrait with white hair. And just like the Ibaraki there are creatures in Japanese myth that have specifically white hair, like the Sojobo, who is known as the Tengu king, the Kyonshi/jiangshi, the Goblin Of Oyeyama, the goblin king, the mountain woman (wife to the Mountain man who has black hair as oppose to his wife), and sometimes foxes and dragons. They are all over the place, so, as we all know, when a character has white hair they share a connection to these creatures, whether because they are of similar in origin or related to them. Often times you will hear that if a fox is posing as a human they will have white hair or it could also be a sign of possession by a fox or other evil spirits (no source on this. Again, all lost to deletion).

All this is indicative of the white hair and why we see characters with it but we all know what Japanese folk creature has the most significant correlation to this myth and how it associated to the supernatural so I won't bother going into it.

I'll move on from Japan for now and start with other places.

Also, I ain't no expert. If you have something to add, something to correct from what I'm saying, or have other examples or just something to add in general feel free.

Also, any idea when we'll get image positing up?
 

Rebel Dynasty

Creator of Microcosms
Premium
I actually found this quite informative; aside from white hair having connections to forms of divinity throughout a handful of mythological belief systems, I didn't know much else. I think you pretty much covered it, but should I unearth anymore information while doing my own research (since I've been delving back into mythology a fair bit for my own purposes) I'll certainly post it here, as well. :)
 

berto

I Saw the Devil
Moderator
I don't think this is working. Rather than by nation I think I'll just divide it by themes and those into smaller posts rather than entire page long research papers I could be getting A's with at a class for the subject matter.

So, the themes I've covered:
In relation to Death.
In relation to Divinity.
In relation to the Supernatural.
In relation to Demonic.

I should've started with death all across the board, then Divinity and so on.

Also, I'd like to point out the difference between all those themes since they could arguably all be called 'supernatural.' Related to death mean just that, related to divinity, also, they are specifically those aspects of the supernatural. Demonic also is it's own prospect, just because something is evil doesn't make it demonic. Vampires, for example, are not demons. Unholy, yes, demonic, no. Get the difference?

There is one las theme I'll talk about tomorrow in relation to the subject matter and then I'll add more of what was said on those themes.
 
Last edited:

Gel

When the going gets tough, the tough get going
Premium
Thank you for your information!You always post something worthy to learn.
 

berto

I Saw the Devil
Moderator
Ok. Last criteria.

Raise of hands, who here's heard the old wives tale of people's hair turning white from fear?

Apparently it happened to Marie Antoinette the night before they severed her head from her shoulders. Same for Sir Thomas More back in 1535 before his execution in the tower of London. The man who built the Taj Mahal? Shah Jahan, also had his hair turn white after his favorite wife dies and so he constructed it in her honor. Annie Oakley, the guns woman? Witnessed a train crash that apparently turned her hair white 17 hours after the event. One of the most bizarre events of a similar situation is a case in 1909 where a young 22 year old woman witnessed the murder of another woman, the victim' throat was slit, and he pubic hair became white from the shock the very next morning.

Science tells us that there is no way in hell that your hair can change colors in an instant, it is, by it's very nature, dead tissue as soon it's out of your scalp. The pigmentation in our hair is determined by a chemical called melanin and in no way is it affected by the chemicals your brain produces when any emotional state is induced once it's out of your skill. Can your emotions change your hair color? Yes, but first it would have to grow first. Your hair is your hair color until it changes and then grows out from your scalp, once produced it doesn't change color on it's own.

By the way, if your hair turns white early in your age you blame your genetics. Your parentage has more to do, apparently, with when you turn grey than the levels of stress or other emotions.

This makes all the stories of this happening seemingly impossible, specially when you consider there are no modern cases where this has happened. Dr. David Orentreich argues that these cases might've been related to an illness, an autoimmune condition called alopecia areata (Check me out rockin' da latin) which causes follicles that still have color to fall off leaving nothing but the white hair making it seem like it turned white overnight. People, however, have argued that if all but the white hair fell off it would be obvious since it the hair in their head would become tremendously sparse and obvious.

None of this, however, removes the impact the idea that a person's hair can turn white either overnight or in a moment has had in myth, poetry, and fiction can have. Hell, it doesn't remove the very possibility.

By the way, the oldest case in recorded history was in a Talmud about a young 17 year old boy from Israel back in 83 A.D. who studied so hard his hair turned white.

China has a few tales of the dramatic to share with us. Most are very similar in context between themselves and they rarely seem to involve men, but there are a few.

The most famous story is the one of the Bride with White Hair. If you know Kung Fu movies chances are you are familiar with this character. The original story is called Bai Fa Mo Nu Zhuan (白发魔女传), also known as the Romance of the White Haired Maiden, and it took place during the Ming dynasty. Long story short Lian Ni Chang, a vigilante swordswoman, and Zhuo Yi Hang, from the opposing force, become lovers and in a misunderstanding during a fight Zhou stabs Lian. She thinks he betrayed her and fell into a deep sleep. When she wakes up her hair has turned completely white and she becomes vengeful and is nicknamed the 'white haired demoness.' Zhuo tracks Lian down but she is unforgiving and unwilling to listen. Zhuo hears of a rare flower that reverts the effects aging and he hopes will return to the Lian knew, however the flower only blooms every sixty years and so he waits for it to bloom in hopes that it will reunite him with Lian.

There have been more than a few film and television versions of this story with some alterations, like the Legend of the White Hair Brides which tells the afterwards of the events that occurred in the original story and the young people who were doomed to the same fate and Lian and Zhou. Most of those movies and the TV shows are from the 90's and prior, as far back as 1959. Aside from those there are two modern renditions that came out this year and in 2012 called The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom 3D (白髮魔女傳之明月天國), I heard it wasn't very good, nor that it worked well with the source material and a television series called The Bride with White Hair (Xin Bai Fa Mo Nü Zhuan), to which I've read no reviews for.

You will find a lot of references of the White Haired Demoness in Hong Kong cinema here and there. They might sport different names but the idea is that they are meant to be the Demoness. The most recent rendition, outside of the actual story, is possibly the whip wielding baddie from Forbidden Kingdom with Jackie Chan and Jet Li played by Li Bing Bing (Dude? Hot). As I understand another portrayal of the character, again, not so much Lian, but rather the Demoness, was Zi Xuan (Played by Tiffany Tang) in season 3 of series called Chinese Paladin (never seen it).

On a small note there are a handful of characters in chinese television and film who have turned white haired because various reasons, whether it be that they are both immortal and old, but retain their youthful appearance, or family loss, such as Sheng Gu of the Chinese Paladin, Ying Gu of the Legend of the Condor Heroes, Wei Zhuang and Xuenu (meaning Snow Lady) of the animated show The Legend of Qin (Qin’s Moon), Xiao’er of and Haoqi Seven of the Sky, Xiao Yao of Fairy of the Chalice. I've never seen the these shows and it has been far too long since I saw the Bride with White Hair but if you get interested there they is.

While this is the most famous story out of China there are a few more worth noting from China itself, since there is where I found the largest number of examples of this, sans the non fictional/mythical ones.

The White Haired Girl is a Ballet from 1945, a film version was made in 1950, based on a legend that originated in the border of 3 towns. It was a story that reflected the suffering of the women in the region. Xi'er is a young woman living in a village in the Hebei province. Her father, who was deep in dept, was murdered by the landlord and dept collectors and they took her to become the landlord's concubine. Xi'er's Fiance and the other young people of the town are out for justice but instead they are told they should join the army. Xi'er is made to work and is very poorly treated by the Landlord's mother so one day Xi'er takes the whip the landlord uses to beat her and beats his mother with all her strength. This lands her in the hole but one of the servants who is very sympathetic of Xi'er opens the door and she flees. The landlord sends goons after her but they think she's drowned as she left a single shoe in front of the river. A year goes by and Xi'er has been living off offerings left in a temple and sleeping in a cave. She's been fighting off wolfs and other animals in the mountains until her hair turns white. One rainy night the landlord and his goons take shelter in the temple on a night when Xi'er is also there. Upon seen her with the withered and tattered white clothes and her white hair the landlord assumes she is a goddess there to punish them for what they did to Xi'er. Seen an opportunity to enact revenge Xi'er attacks them and they flee. Returning from fighting the Japanese, Xi'er's fiance overthrows the Imperialists and the landlord with the army and hears the stories so he goes looking for her in the mountains. He eventually finds her in the cave where they reunite and rejoice.

Another legend, one I'm assuming is much older is the one of the The Waterfall of White Hair or The Long Haired Girl. A girl with long black hair, obviously, lives in a village high up in a mountain. The has little access to water and so both the people and the crops suffer for it. One day, as she collects herbs, the girl picks up a turnip and finds a spring underneath it. The turnip flies from her hand and plants itself back in the ground blocking the spring. She pulls the turnip out again and tried the sweet water. The turnip flies from her hand again to block the spring and a gust of wind picks her up and takes her to the Mountain Spirit who warns her that is she tells anyone of the spring he will kill her. The girl returns to her village and is torn from fear of death and the inability to watch the town suffer. She obviously tells the town which didn't go over very well with the mountains spirit who tells her to lie down in the cliff where the spring is flowing. however, a tree spirit tells the girl he'd carve a statue of her so it can take her place. so he yanks her hair and puts it on the stone. Her hair and the spring become a great waterfall. Her hair grows back out, long and black again, and she becomes the towns hero for risking her life.

Most stories you hear about this follow these themes. Suffering and loss are the catalyst. There are some diverse stories, like the others I've listed, but in chinese tales these are, from what I've found, the most common.

There is only one more tale from China I will pass on. There once was a man who claimed he was a great cook. He lived in a great city and dubbed himself the God of Cookery. In reality he was a very poor chef and was only in it for the money. One day the chef, named Chow, took an apprentice named Bull Tong who later betrayed him and kicked him to the streets. There he met Turkey, and street vendor who was constantly battling another vendor regarding who had the better dish. On one side the Beef balls and the other the "****ing" Shrimp. Chow managed to unite all the vendors by combining the two dished and thus was born the ****ing Beef Balls. With the success of the ****ing Beef Balls the vendors talk Chow in to going back to culinary school and reclaiming the name The God of Cookery. Bull Tong hears of this and hires assassins to kill Chow but mistakenly kill Turkey who turned out idealized Chow when he was The God of Cookery. In the Temple the master refuses to let Chow escape and has the eighteen golden monks who are the protectors of the temple stop him at every turn by beating him with folding chairs and dragging his bloody unconscious body back to the kitchen. Chow continues to mourn the death of Turkey and weeps for seven days after which his hair turns white. Eventually the master allows Chow, first name Stephen, to return to the city to confront Bull Tong in a competition. However Bull Tong not only sabotages Stephen Chow's dish but he also bribed the judge, so even after he won, Bull Tong snatched the victory from Stephen Chow. However, Stephen Chow has a realization, an epiphany, if you will, that perhaps all people can become gods of cookery and so hearing this the gods part the roof and reveal that Stephen Chow was once the assistant to the heavenly cook and was cast down from heaven for sharing the culinary secrets of the gods with mortals. Bull Tong gets turned into a bulldog, Stephen Chow returns to the vendors and finds Turkey lived and got some free plastic surgery to make her pretty again and they rejoiced.

I'm sure there are more examples in Japan, Korea, and the rest of Asia, but the only other noteworthy story that I still remember (I know I had a few others from Japan but oh, well) is from a manga (Which is something I didn't want to do at first but this one is similar enough). Yukishiro Enishi, from Rurouni Kenshin, witnessed the murder of his sister and his hair turned white in grief and rage.

Another example, not from Asia, is Ash at the end of the Evil Dead 2. If you haven't seen it the sides of his hair turned immediately white when he was confronting the evil. The television show Charmed (God, I hated that show), featured an episode where a sorcerer (?) was killing women by making them confront whatever they were most afraid of and giving the heart attacks. When their bodies were found their hair had, of course, gone white. I did have a bunch of other examples that have been lost to the ages, but I think you get the point. On our side of the world it's fear and shock that we associate with this phenomena but it seems in Asia it is powerful emotions like grief, sorrow, and rage.

Basically, it means having emotions so powerful you've just aged. Your body might not show it but your hair does. Like I mentioned before, in Japan it is an indication of the last part of the life cycle, You could even argue that part of them died.

I only still have a few things to add to this but overall those were the main criteria I found regarding this subject.
 
Last edited:

Kam

Wall of text crits you for 600
the real, literal reason for classic dante's red coat and white hair was that there were concerns that a muted color palette would make it hard for players to distinguish dante from the swarms of enemies he would be frequently buried in. 3D brawler games weren't really a thing back then, and this was on the gloriously grainy PS2, so having a brown character fighting 9 brown enemies was a legitimate concern. The red coat (initially just a vest, later upgraded to longcoat because reasons) would stick out, but even if the coat was obscured, a bright white head would still be distinct. You'll notice that the shades of red and white that are dante's coat and hair do not appear anywhere else in DMC1; this was intentional.
 

berto

I Saw the Devil
Moderator
I don't know that you can call it the 'real reason' since I think it's a little more complicated than that. I remember that, the contrasting design choice; in an interview one of the staff talked about how they designed Dante first and then they created the world to compliment him, but that is not exactly the whole thing and it can't simply be said that 'red and white because he'll stick out' and leave it at that as the only reason. If you want him to really stick out make him a nice and bright neon orange and light his hair on fire and you'll see the character every time. So, yes, that is true, but there was a bit more to it than just that, since he isn't the first or last character to sport the color scheme.

Red is the color of passion and intensity, of anger and, in Japan, of life. Also, in Japan you will often find that characters with the color red are the protagonists or leaders. For example the red power ranger and other shows of it's like. And, don't forget, to Japan red and white have a special meaning since it is the color scheme of the banner of the rising sun.



Anyway, I'll be finishing up in the next two days. There is very little to add on the subject on my end but it looks like this was a bit of a bust since there didn't seem to be much interest in the subject. Maybe I waited too long.
 

berto

I Saw the Devil
Moderator
K. Last one for the categories.


Technically this falls in the supernatural category. So, a lot of the times the hair color is representative of something. Re is fire, blue is water, green of plants or forests. White is not that different. There are a lot of white things but if your character is meant to be of relation to something white it can either be to the moon or snow.

Like I said before, I wanted to only show classical and folklore samples of this but for this one I didn't find any for these two. I'm no expert so I couldn't get you an in depth look at this myth. We all know it, though, it has been around longer than Avatar.

In the case of snow there is one deity I found that I still remember, Holda. Frau Holda is the guardian of women's crafts, specifically spinning, since there are many associations to it and the spirit world. However Frau Holda is also said to be the Lady of Winter since it is she who brings winter to the land. There are other examples, I am sure, but I can't remember them, nor do I have the information anymore.

Well, that's it for actual defining categories, but I will leave you with some stories. I'll post them later since I have work to do.
 

berto

I Saw the Devil
Moderator
Triple posting... Shame on me.

Anyway, I forgot to mention. White hair at an early age can be caused by a deficiency in vitamin b12 or thyroid deficiencies caused by something called Waardenburg syndrome.
 

berto

I Saw the Devil
Moderator
Ever heard of the Epimelides? (Singular: Epimeliad; Plural: Epimelides) In greek mythology they were nymphs that lived in the mountain side and protected both apple trees and herds. The funny thing here is that the greek word for apple and sheep is the same, so, epi-, meaning "protector," and mêlon, meaning either "Apple-tree" or "sheep." So the debate is was their hair white as and apple blossom or as the wool of sheep? Well, no one could decide so they got both jobs.



Long ago in the Persian lands a Feridun chief named Sām had a son he called Zāl. Zāl had been born with snow white hair and because of this Sam feared that he was the son of a daeva. Not knowing what might befall if he kept such a child he chose to abandon him on the mountain top of Damavand. Zāl, however, was fortunate, for a simurgh found him and raised him in his nest. On hearing word of his son Sām became remorseful and wanted to meet his son once again. The simurgh told Zāl to seek his father but gave him a single feather if he was ever in danger. Upon reuniting with his father Zāl was welcomed and eventually his father give him a position of responsibility in the city of Zabulistan where his father also worked.

Zāl, however, was embarrassed because of how little of the world he knew so he decided to travel. Eventually he reached Kabul, a city ran by an enemy of his father's and the king of Persia, a descendant of Zohak, Mehrab. Even so, Zāl had heard stories of the chief's daughter, Rudabeh, who was said to be terribly beautiful, 'fair as the moon' and with gorgeous black hair that reached her feet and 'made men think of heaven.' ... Damn. And in turn Rudabeh had also heard of Zāl and his white hair and strange upbringing. Taking notice of her interest, Rudabeh's attendants gathered roses and left them at his camp. While killing a bird Zāl was told that if he was worthy she could be his. Zāl gave the attendants jewels, robes, and rings for Rudabeh and so she invited him to her retreat and there she called him from her balcony and she let down her hair for him to climb. There they professed their love.

Thing weren't looking too well, though. The Persian king made a vow to kill all descendants of Zohak. Upon hearing this Zāl sent a letter to his father telling him he wished to marry Rudabeh. Sām consulted an astrologer who told him that their union would produce a great conqueror. With this Sām contacted the Persian king and asked for permission for the marriage. The Persian king's astrologers told him the same thing and so he consented and made peace with the ruler of Kabul.

By the way Zāl (زال) is the Persian word for Albino, so named by his parents because of the white hair.



Did you know that in Hungarian mythology holy men were picked at birth? The were called táltos and the way they knew if they were meant to be one was by abnormalities at birth, like been born with teeth, or with white hair, or extra fingers. Extra fingers meant that they were of divine order so that was a biggie.



So, I saw this movie on netflix called White: The Melody of the Curse (화이트: 저주의 멜로디). Korean horror, if you hadn't guess. It's about this unremarkable idol group called Pink Dolls. They're not doing too well so the eldest, Eun-ju, is looking for something to improve the situation and watches a tape of an unreleased music video. The lead is wearing a white wig and the song, in turn, is called white. The girl decides to use the song and the look hoping to turn things around. Well, it works. The group become an overnight sensation and they start doing well. Unfortunately the girls really don't get along and the all start fighting for the lead, which means a white wig, by the way. Well, suddenly they all start dropping like flies and the killer song comes with a killer ghost.

The movie's Ok. 3 out 5. ★★★☆☆, bang. It's not particularly great. It's a fun watch but hardly a classic. Though you gatta admit, leading actress Ham Eun-jeong looks pretty damn good like that.



There is another movie on Netflix called Painted Skin. Well, the sequel is. This one deals with demons, specifically foxes. It's pair of kung fu movies but if you are curious about demons in Chinese myth you could do worse. In this case the white hair originates from the fox and the woman she ether tricks or possesses.

The story is from an old legend in a text called Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. The original, also called painted skin, is pretty different, but with some heavy similarities. Main importance, evil creature has human skin she wears and paints to disguise herself as human and rips out the hearts of men.



Anyway, I think this is it for me. It seems the thread didn't really pick up much interest so it'll probably just sink to the depths of page 2 before too long and then we'll never see it again. It's too bad the image posting wasn't up before this, it might've made it all a bit more entertaining to read with a picture or two.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom