The Call (2020)

The Call (originally known as just Call) 2020 South Korean thriller film directed by Lee Chung-hyun, starring Park Shin-hye and Jeon Jong-seo. Based on the 2011 British and Puerto Rican film The Caller, The Call revolves around Seo-yeon (Park Shin-hye) and Young-sook (Jeon Jong-seo), two women from different times who connect through a phone call which interchanges their fates. It was released on Netflix on November 27, 2020. The film's release date was impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Summary
In 2019, a young woman ends up getting calls from a woman who lives in the exact same house but two decades earlier. The two continue communing through the phone and time itself to change one another's destiny for better or worse for both eras.

Plot
In 2019, 28-year-old Kim Seo-yeon loses her cellphone while traveling to visit her sick, estranged mother in a rural area. Arriving at her rundown childhood home, she finds a decades-old cordless phone, and through it receives calls from a distressed woman who says she's being tortured by her mother. After investigating the house, Seo-yeon figures out that the woman on the phone, Oh Young-sook, is living in the same house but in 1999. The two are able to communicate across time through the phone, and exchange information about their lives. Young-sook is orphaned and lives with her adoptive mother, who is a shaman, while Seo-yeon lost her father in a fire that she blames her mother, Eun-ae, for.

Young-sook, acting on information from Seo-yeon, sneaks out of the house to prevent the fire that killed Seo-yeon's father. She is successful, and Seo-yeon's reality changes: her parents are both alive and healthy, and their house lavish. Young-sook, however, is punished by her mother, and becomes resentful that Seo-yeon's life is improved while hers is the same.

Seo-yeon searches the internet and learns that Young-sook was killed by her mother during an exorcism. During the next phone call, Seo-yeon warns Young-sook, who saves herself and kills her mother instead. Now freed, Young-sook becomes a serial killer. Seo-yeon realizes what's happened when Young-sook's victims disappear in the present day. During a phone call, Seo-yeon confronts Young-sook, but inadvertently reveals to her that she'll be arrested.

In 1999, Young-sook is visited by an 8-year-old Seo-yeon and her father, who have come to the house to close their purchase of it. Young-sook kills Seo-yeon's father and takes young Seo-yeon captive. In 2019, Seo-yeon's reality changes again: her father is dead and the house in even worse condition. Young-sook calls Seo-yeon and tells her to find out how she'll be arrested. At first Seo-yeon feeds Young-sook false info, but when Young-sook threatens to kill Eun-ae next, Seo-yeon breaks into the local police station for the notebook used in 1999. Young-sook taunts Seo-yeon that they're the same, because Seo-yeon caused the fire that originally killed her father, and lied about Eun-ae being responsible.

Seo-yeon gives Young-sook the correct info, and her reality changes again: the house is now owned by an older Young-sook, who has continued unstopped as a serial killer. The content of the notebook changes as well, with a note that Eun-ae came to the house with a police officer and made a call on the cordless phone. Seo-yeon waits in the house for the call and uses it to warn Eun-ae.

In 1999, Young-sook kills the police officer and chases Eun-ae. In 2019, older Young-sook reveals herself and similarly chases Seo-yeon. Eun-ae uses the phone again, and Seo-yeon picks up and encourages her to fight. Eun-ae seemingly sacrifices herself to kill Young-sook, and 2019 changes, with the house becoming derelict and old Young-sook disappearing. Seo-yeon leaves the house and is emotionally reunited with Eun-ae, who is alive and well, albeit with scars.

In a mid-credits scene, older Young-sook uses the phone to call her younger counterpart and warn her about Eun-ae and the police officer, allowing her to change her own history, and erasing Eun-ae from Seo-yeon's side. At the end, the scene cuts to the torture room where a person covered in white cloth is tied to a chair, screaming for help. The cloth is removed, revealing a frightened Seo-yeon, who will most likely meet her demise by Young-sook.

Cast

 * Park Shin-hye as Kim Seo-yeon
 * Jeon Jong-seo as Oh Young-sook
 * Kim Sung-ryung as Eun-ae, Seo-yeon's mother.
 * Lee El as Ja-ok, Young-sook's mother
 * Oh Jung-se as Seong-ho
 * Lee Dong-hwi as Baek Mi-hyun
 * Park Ho-san as Mr. Kim (Seo-yeon's father)