SYNOPSIS:
An
ancient love curse drew four students to visit a haunted village.
When the trip turned horribly wrong, it's up to a young writer
and his ex-girlfriend to face the supernatural behind the
curse.
MOVIE REVIEW:
As prejudiced as this sounds, we’ve always had our reservations about horror movie rated PG by our friends at the censorship board. How horrifying can a flick be if it can be seen by audiences of all ages? We understand there is something called psychological horror (not everything needs to be blood and gore), but our concern still stands. There may be a consumer advice of “brief nudity and some disturbing scenes” for this Lo Chi Leung directed movie, but we don’t think it will bring the production far.
And as the end credits began rolling, we could only tell ourselves: how right we were.
The story starts off decently, where a writer publishes a novel about a mansion haunted by a vengeful spirit. This (female, nonetheless) angry ghost wants to curse all lovers because she was burnt to death some years ago. With that background set up, we have four students who decide to visit this haunted village, only to meet with tragic deaths – one by one. Elsewhere, the writer seems to be repeatedly haunted by the spirit, and as if that’s not troubling enough, his ex girlfriend shows up to add dimension to the story.
You’d think you are in for a thrilling ride of suspense and intrigue, especially when the DVD cover tells you that this is the movie is helmed by the director who brought you Leslie Cheung and Karena Lam’s creepy Inner Senses, but you’d only be disappointed by the half baked script by the end of the 96 minute movie. As mentioned, the setup is promising, but as the tale progresses, it gets muddled by a lack of focus and cluttered storytelling. It loses direction and becomes a mess. To make things worse, things never got too scary (it’s rated PG, so expect nothing outstandingly spine chilling), and the final nail to the coffin is the ending. Without giving too much, let’s just say it is something our primary school teachers warned us not to do while writing compositions.
Performances wise, Shawn Yue (a very busy man, we presume, considering the movies he has been starring in lately) takes on the writer role competently. His brooding good looks serve him well and help him portray his character with ease. Kitty Zhang plays the ex girlfriend, and this may be harsh, but we do not fancy someone like this character in our lives, because it can get rather irksome at times. That said, Zhang pulls off a passable performance too. The rest of the supporting roles are filled by less well known Mainland Chinese actors.
With nothing to offer in the scare department and nothing to look forward to in the storytelling section, die hard horror fans will diss this one, we are sure.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
This Code 3 DVD contains a Trailer and a Photo Gallery.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
There is nothing to complain about the movie's visual transfer. You can choose to watch it in either Mandarin or Cantonese (there is really no need to include the latter audio track, because most of the actors are from China).
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING:
Review by John Li
Posted on 16 October 2010
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