Wishing Stairs

Wishing Stairs follows students at a Korean arts high school, where a legend surrounds the staircase leading up to the girls' dormitory. It normally has twenty-eight steps, but a twenty-ninth sometimes appears to someone who wishes with all her heart. Standing on that step is said to make the wish come true, though the price can be terrible. At the centre of the story are Jin-sung and So-hee, two friends in the dance department whose bond is strained by rivalry over a place at a Russian ballet school. So-hee is devoted to Jin-sung, who envies her friend's natural ability and finds herself always in second place. A fox spirit is said to haunt the stairs, and Jin-sung knows what she wants to ask for, without realising what the staircase will demand in return.

The film was directed by Yun Jae-yeon from a screenplay by Lee Shin-ae, Kim Soo-ah and Lee So-yeong, and produced by An Eun-mi and Kim Jae-hong. It was Yun's first feature, arriving sixteen years before her second, The K-Pop Story. Song Ji-hyo plays Jin-sung and Park Han-byul plays So-hee, with Jo An, Park Ji-yeon, Lee Ji-hyeong and Gong Sang-a in supporting roles. It runs 100 minutes and was released in August 2003.

Audience scores are modest: on IMDb it holds 5.8 out of 10 from around 3,500 votes, and on TMDB it sits at 6.2 out of 10 from far fewer, roughly 111. The film belongs to the Yeogo goedam series of Korean school horror films.