SYNOPSIS:
Lam Yi (Grace Ip) attempts to commit suicide when she was caught by her one night stand's girlfriend for having an affair, but gives up the idea when she bumps into an orphan, and takes the child as her own. But the child has a mysterious and incurable disease. Desperate, Yi brings the child to a Chinese folk ritual to chase out the demon that possesses the child. However, the ceremony reveals more than the child's identity...
MOVIE REVIEW:
Low-budget horror movies often have a habit of piling on the scares, without any semblance of a coherent storyline or logic. Luckily, Forget Me Not has not forgotten the importance of plot and that has made all the difference- for although there are several effective jump in your seat moments, its story is what will stay with you when the credits roll.
When we first meet Lam Yee (Grace Ip), she is a kindergarten school teacher who is in a troubled relationship with her ex-boyfriend (Carl Ng). But she soon reveals that she cannot remember anything of her past from five years back from after she survived a suicide attempt. After the passing of her caretaker, she is given a set of keys to her old house. Curious to learn more about her identity, she returns to her previous flat.
From here on, you’d probably guess that in no time, she will encounter things that go bump in the night. Indeed, not only does she start having disturbing visions and nightmares, she also begins to sense that her past may be intimately linked with a boy whom she sees around the neighbourhood. Moved out of pity to take the boy in, she becomes aware that there is an otherworldly presence that has possessed the boy.
For a good part of the story, the movie keeps its cards close and reveals enough to get you intrigued but not too much to spoil the surprise later on. You’ll be kept in suspense trying to figure out what is it in Lam Yee’s past that ties her fate to that of the boy. And believe me, even if you’ve got it thought out, the ending is still a kicker.
That is thanks to a very human and real story that deftly wraps up all the loose ends earlier on. It is truly admirable that Forget Me Not manages to make sense of all the obligatory bits of horror such that nothing in the plot ends up being simply superfluous. Yes, it has most competently avoided a common pitfall of most forgettable horror movies.
There are no big name casts here- unless you remember Grace Ip from when she starred in Gen X Cops or in a certain throwaway local movie called Street Angels. Here she turns in a serviceable performance as the distressed protagonist trying to uncover the secrets of her own past. Fortunately, there is none of the bad acting that often plagues such direct to home video flicks.
Forget Me Not is certainly no horror classic, but it does hold its own against the bigger-budget hyped-up horror entrees that ultimately disappoint. At least it possesses what most films of its genre lack- a solid plot that makes the whole at the end more satisfying than the sum of its parts.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
NIL
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Both its Mandarin and Cantonese audio tracks are available in Dolby 2.0 and 5.1. Especially during its scary moments, its 5.1 track is a surprisingly good treat. The visual transfer also brings out nicely the hues and shadows in the movie.
(P.S.- The Scorpio East logo does pop out at least once during the start and end of the movie. It’s not as frequent as before, but still remains a distraction.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Gabriel Chong
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