White: Melody of Death 2011

The Pink Dolls, a girl group comprised of Jin Se-yeon as Jeni, Choi Ah-ra as A-rang, Maydoni as Shin-ji, and Hahm Eun-jung as Eun-ju, makes their debut on stage but struggles to win over a wide audience. After the group and their record company relocate to a renovated studio that had burned in a fire fifteen years earlier, Eun-ju’s sponsor, Mr. Choi, is credited with arranging the move and funding the renovations—on conditions that raise troubling ethical questions. The other three members bully Eun-ju for her involvement with Mr. Choi, her past as a backup dancer, and her age, pushing her toward quitting even as she wrestles with loyalty to her friends and her own ambitions.

Her vocal trainer and best friend, Soon-ye, played by Hwang Woo-seul-hye, urges her to stay, convinced that the quartet can still break through with a new song. While cleaning the dance rehearsal room, Eun-ju discovers a VHS tape titled “WHITE” containing unfinished footage of a music video. Later, she screens the video in her dorm room, and the group’s manager, Kim Ki-bang, reviews it and demands that the group remake the song as their next single, intensifying the sense of a hidden history behind the project.

The Pink Dolls surge to overnight fame with a live performance of White, a moment that also features Soon-ye doubling as a singer for Jeni’s high notes. Yet the success breeds jealousy and fear. Initially, Jeni is chosen as the “main” focus, but she is mysteriously strangled with microphone cords during a vocal session after being pressured to overdose on her medication. A-rang is selected to take her place, only to be attacked by a white-haired ghost during filming for the music video and poisoned by cosmetics, sending her to the hospital alongside Jeni. Shin-ji is then chosen during filming for a survival reality show, and the same apparition attacks her, inciting a riot among spectators and ultimately leaving Shin-ji trapped in camera equipment and hospitalized.

With the fear that the song is cursed, Eun-ju teams with Soon-ye and the record producer Tae-Yong, Kim Young-min, to examine hidden images within the video and to uncover who really wrote the song. They come to suspect that trainee Jang Ye-bin, who died before the studio fire, authored the track. When Eun-ju confronts Mr. Choi, he tells her Ye-bin died by suicide. Back in the rehearsal room, a despondent Eun-ju is menaced by the white-haired ghost until she collapses, finding a suicide note beside power sockets that may have started the fire.

Soon-ye and Eun-ju seek guidance from a priest and visit Ye-bin’s grave, blessing the site and asking Ye-bin to move on. As they depart, the memorial photo’s glass shatters ominously, hinting that the past may not be fully exorcised. Afterward, a renewed sense of confidence leads Eun-ju to credit herself for the song as a solo, adopting a stark white image and the stage name “White”. Yet this pride isolates her from Soon-ye and the other members, who watch bitterly from the hospital beds while Eun-ju pursues a high-stakes live debut.

As Soon-ye and Tae-Yong dig deeper, they uncover subliminal messages within the video that reveal Ye-bin was not the true singer and that another figure remains unseen. A television producer’s urgent call confirms that Jeni, A-rang, and Shin-ji have fallen into a trance, muttering about being “hot” before drinking bleach and dying live on air. In a tense crescendo, Soon-ye races to the venue to rescue Eun-ju, but the doors are locked and the show has begun. When the lights fail and the venue’s electricity falters, the manager and Mr. Choi are killed by stage equipment, the white-haired ghost closes in on Eun-ju, and the doors finally open as panicked crowds rush out. Soon-ye reaches the scene and tries to reunite with Eun-ju, but she is trampled to death in the crowd as the venue catches fire. In the aftermath, Soon-ye mourns Eun-ju and destroys the remaining evidence in the studio’s karaoke room, only to hear the karaoke machine announce the next song—“White”—leaving the possibility that the curse has not been fully broken.