The Witch: Part 2. The Other One Plot Synopsis
The Witch: Part 2. The Other One (Manyeo 2: Lo Go), is the sequel to The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion, a dystopian, sci-fi, horror-thriller action movie series from South Korea.
It essentially deals with top-secret genetic experimentations on children, wherein the Baek twins have managed to create super soldiers, an advanced species of hyper-strong humans with physically perfect genes, brains genetically re-engineered and violence embedded in their subconscious. Until Ja-yoon kills the first twin and her sister escapes from the second lab, threatening to destroy everything that the Baeks have built.
Who is the girl in the red jacket at the beginning of the film?
The Witch: Part 2. The Other One begins with a young teenage girl in a red jacket, with a walkman, riding a bus with a group of college friends in the early 90s. The bus is hijacked, the young lady in red is abducted, the rest are brutally murdered and the bus is later found in a ravine and assumed by the authorities to have met with an accident.
In the meantime, the girl in red is rendered unconscious and taken to a secret laboratory, run by Dr. Baek. Here it’s revealed that the girl is pregnant.
Why is the girl in red jacket important?
It all begins with the girl in the red jacket. Dr. Baek tells her that she will be the mother of countless children, lab rats for their super soldier experiments. And among them, is Koo Ja-yoon (from The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion) and the female protagonist in The Witch: Part 2. The Other One. But why is the mother still essential?
Well, Dr. Baek had created a sort of an insurance plan, i.e., a controlling mechanism for these super-creatures who got out of control – a congenital defect purposely embedded in their system which was a countdown to a painful brain seizure and death. This could be kept at bay, only by being injected with a special drug every month. This meant that if they fled, got out of hand or went AWOL, they would die.
Towards the end of Part 1, Ja-yoon learns that there is a permanent cure to this problem, which can be extracted from the bone marrow of her mother. The end of Part 2 shows the mother connected to a matrix-type life support system in suspended animation hinting that this is possible.
How are the protagonists in the two films different?
The protagonist in Part 1 is Ja-yoon (played by Kim Da-mi) who is motivated by her search for the cure and her love for her foster parents and friends but still enjoys her violent side.
The central figure in Part 2 is simply called the Other One or ADP or Ark 1 (portrayed by Shin Shi-ah). ADP is Ja-yoon’s twin but was separated at birth as she was isolated in Ark Main – the laboratory’s main headquarters.
Unlike Ja-yoon, ADP had no human contact till she inadvertently found freedom. She doesn’t understand societal norms but still feels for the people who take her in. Being genetically implanted with superpowers and having lived all her life in isolation, ADP is more like Eleven from Stranger Things.
She beats up thugs effortlessly and saves the kindly farmer woman, Kyung-hee (played by the famous South Korean actress, Park Eun-bin). She almost falls in love with Kyung-hee’s brother, Dae-gil (Sung Yoo-bin) and is fascinated by everything around her whether it be nature, cattle, fireworks or even food. Having never “eaten food” in her matrix-like state, ADP falls head over heels in love with the joy of eating.
ADP also happens to be a clone of her mother and is thus subconsciously connected to her. This also adds to Ja-yoon’s motivation to find ADP as she is the only one who can find their mother, the source of the permanent cure.
What is Kyung-hee’s story?
Kyung-hee is a young farmer who’s battling the land mafia led by a vicious Yong-doo (played by the noted actor Jin Goo) who goes as far as to kill her father to get their land.
Kyung-hee’s first meeting with ADP is when she’s forcibly taken by Young-doo’s thugs and their car comes across the bloodied girl who has just escaped the Ark Main. The men force her into the car and plan to kill her so that there are no witnesses to what they will do to Kyung-hee. The next thing they know is pure, unmitigated violence. The thugs are hammered to an inch of their lives.
Kyung-hee takes ADP to her home where she lives with her brother, Dae-gil in a typical sibling love-hate relationship. The three live in harmony which allows ADP to get a glimpse of a normal life before it is cruelly taken away from her. When Kyung-hee and Dae-gil are murdered by Yong-doo, ADP suddenly experiences a new type of pain – the trauma of losing loved ones.
ADP’s pain is so unbearable and profound, that it totally overshadows the emotions of her first meeting with her blood sister, Ja-yoon. In fact, when Ja-yoon offers a vial, saying that only one of them can be saved, the girl is nonplussed, and in a major quandary. She cannot choose between them, because both have become very dear to her.
Who is Jang?
Jang (played by Korean heartthrob, Lee Jong-suk) is the nephew of the evil Dr. Baek (Jo Min-soo). He is an important functionary, and probably heads the security on behalf of the consortium. But there is no love lost between aunt and nephew. In fact, there are two organizations that are at loggerheads with each other – the Trans-humans/Superhumanist Organization led by Dr. Baek and the Alliance/Unionists of which Jang is an important member.
The film begins with a breach at the Ark Main by unknown forces that allowed ADP to escape in the first place. The wheel-chair bound Dr. Baek and Jang meet and discuss this issue with the latter hinting that since Ark Main was a top-secret lab, it could only be targeted by internal forces. He knows Ja-yoon is behind it and is livid that Dr. Baek suspects him.
What is the mercenary team’s role?
To find and kill ADP, Dr. Baek hires a mercenary team led by Sergeant Cho Hyun-jo (played by Seo Eun-soo), a testosterone-driven combat veteran and her partner, Tom (South African actor Justin John Harvey) who provides a bit of comic relief to this sordid tale of blood and gore.
Later, Hyun-jo meets Kyung-hee and shows her a video revealing the true nature of ADP – a killing machine so that she can get her hands on the target without any casualties. Incidentally, Jang and his team, as well as the mercenary team are all superhumans not in any way linked to Ja-yoon, ADP or their mother.
What is the angle of the Chinese agents?
There is also a group of Chinese agents from Shanghai – again superhumans, who at the beginning of the film are actually the ones who breach and destroy Ark Main the laboratory. They are hired by Ja-yoon for the job, which was to kill all the occupants and rescue ADP. But they went above their instructions and riddled ADP with bullets. However, she survived and found her way to freedom and Kyung-hee.
Later, when ADP beats up Yang-doo’s thugs, he manages to contact the Chinese group, with the intention of quick profit. He ends up receiving a dose of their power in exchange for revealing the location of ADP who lives at Kyung-hee’s farm.
Why do all the different teams arrive at Kyung-hee’s farm?
All the above players – the Chinese, the mercenaries and the thugs have one goal in common, to kill ADP and arrive at Kyung-hee’s farm. Sergeant Cho Hyun-jo’s tactical team aims a bazooka at ADP, who’s spotted with Dae-gil on the roof. He leaves to stand by his sister who opposes Yong-doo and is killed in cold blood. At that moment, the bazooka is fired destroying a large portion of the house. ADP however is only rendered unconscious.
The Chinese group go berserk and the mercenary team fight them to protect Dae-gil. But the Chinese superhumans easily win the battle with their superior strength, inhuman speed and psionic powers. Dae-gil too gets killed in the melee. Yang-doo and his goons stand on chance between the battle of the titans and are crushed like ants. Meanwhile, ADP regains consciousness.
Once she comes into the fray, the Chinese group collapses in front of her powers, save one who, frightened, backs up into a car that has just arrived. And from within emerges Ja-yoon. She is angry as she had specifically told them not to kill her sister and promptly causes the last Chinese agent’s head to implode. The film ends with Ja-yoon tranquillizing ADP and taking her away to find their mother and quite a few loose ends with scope for a Part 3.