Warning: Minor spoilers
This film is a bit like a good rough draft that, with more work, could've become something quite interesting. The basic premise is good, about suppressed memories and how they can affect us. It takes its time setting up the characters and scenarios, and the story slowly unravels before us.
It's not horror, or thriller exactly, but a rather horrific tale of trauma and loss. The film is mostly very calm and distinctly un-gruesome, but there are some quite disturbing images that are likely to haunt you for quite a while. But this is a very different film from what you might think of at the term "Asian Horror".
It's main failing is that it doesn't seem to really know what to do, or where to go. It begins with a rather "thriller" approach, with the mystery of two dead girls appearing before our main character, but this event is actually just used as a mood-setter and hook. But nobody let's us know about that, so the viewer is constantly wondering when we'll return to the two dead kids, and how they relate to the story. The movie then seems to head in the direction of a drama, as our main character becomes very interested in a rather disturbed, mysterious woman. You almost think the film is going to be a melancholic love story, but not so. It then becomes a mystery about this woman, what her past is, what her situation is, and trying to find out what's troubling her. But somewhat later the focus is brought back to the main character and his (unmentioned so far) childhood traumas. All in all, the film is a collection of good ideas, some excellent scenes, and quite clever plot elements, but it lacks real unity. Threads are started only to be dropped, others are picked up that were never really introduced, and the focus just keeps shifting from one theme to another without ever actually developing into much.
Throughout, the main character behaves in completely unnatural ways. This could've been used as an effect, to illustrate how the character is crippled by his past traumas, and maybe this is the intention. But it just doesn't work that way. For more than half the film I was wondering what kind of idiot this guy is - only later is there given any hint of the fact that he has some past issues troubling him.
Overall, the rather interesting themes are left almost completely undeveloped on any intellectual level, and the movie ends up as wasted potential. Other filmmakers should watch this film and cannibalize its better ideas.
This film is a bit like a good rough draft that, with more work, could've become something quite interesting. The basic premise is good, about suppressed memories and how they can affect us. It takes its time setting up the characters and scenarios, and the story slowly unravels before us.
It's not horror, or thriller exactly, but a rather horrific tale of trauma and loss. The film is mostly very calm and distinctly un-gruesome, but there are some quite disturbing images that are likely to haunt you for quite a while. But this is a very different film from what you might think of at the term "Asian Horror".
It's main failing is that it doesn't seem to really know what to do, or where to go. It begins with a rather "thriller" approach, with the mystery of two dead girls appearing before our main character, but this event is actually just used as a mood-setter and hook. But nobody let's us know about that, so the viewer is constantly wondering when we'll return to the two dead kids, and how they relate to the story. The movie then seems to head in the direction of a drama, as our main character becomes very interested in a rather disturbed, mysterious woman. You almost think the film is going to be a melancholic love story, but not so. It then becomes a mystery about this woman, what her past is, what her situation is, and trying to find out what's troubling her. But somewhat later the focus is brought back to the main character and his (unmentioned so far) childhood traumas. All in all, the film is a collection of good ideas, some excellent scenes, and quite clever plot elements, but it lacks real unity. Threads are started only to be dropped, others are picked up that were never really introduced, and the focus just keeps shifting from one theme to another without ever actually developing into much.
Throughout, the main character behaves in completely unnatural ways. This could've been used as an effect, to illustrate how the character is crippled by his past traumas, and maybe this is the intention. But it just doesn't work that way. For more than half the film I was wondering what kind of idiot this guy is - only later is there given any hint of the fact that he has some past issues troubling him.
Overall, the rather interesting themes are left almost completely undeveloped on any intellectual level, and the movie ends up as wasted potential. Other filmmakers should watch this film and cannibalize its better ideas.
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