
A rumor had been circulating like wild fire amongst the soldiers. A mad woman living on the island had died at the exact hour of 23:59, and it is believed that her spirit had returned to haunt the soldiers at the exact same time. One of the recruits, Tan, the introverted platoon outcast, is adamant that he will be the next victim of the mad woman's spirit. He tries to convince his buddy Jeremy that the woman's spirit has been visiting him every night. Jeremy laughs it off and... (Full plot summary below)
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A rumor had been circulating like wild fire amongst the soldiers. A mad woman living on the island had died at the exact hour of 23:59, and it is believed that her spirit had returned to haunt the soldiers at the exact same time. One of the recruits, Tan, the introverted platoon outcast, is adamant that he will be the next victim of the mad woman's spirit. He tries to convince his buddy Jeremy that the woman's spirit has been visiting him every night. Jeremy laughs it off and claims that there are no such things as ghosts in this world. They only exist because of Tan's overactive imagination. However, during the 30 km road march for the platoon in the forest, Tan was found dead by the river, with his limbs contorted in a strange way and an expression of deep fear on his face. Overwhelmed with guilt, Jeremy decides to investigate Tan's death, convinced that it was not an accident as what the military officers believe. Little does he know that the truth behind Tan's death will unearth a terrible dark secret of the island and he will have to confront his deepest fears in order to find the truth.
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| User ReviewEd COne sentence summary: A thoughtful Asian ghost story. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Young soldiers who speak Chinese share ghost stories about the minute before midnight. Tan is the designated weak member in the group and receives a lot of static for it. He gets tied up and stuffed into a locker in the middle of the night. Bullying in Asia. No surprises. Jeremy tries to help Tan through the military training course. The endless references to ghosts and past suicides keeps Tan on a downward mood. Jeremy tries to steer him away from this thought pattern, since Jeremy's early childhood included some fakery in the profession of mediums. This is the setting when the last, worst, road march through the jungle is undertaken. Tan gets lost. His pack is found, and the sargeant tells the recruits to go look for him. It starts raining. They find his body; Jeremy thinks he sees a woman watching. The sergeant tries to blame the supernatural for the loss of Tan. This captain will not have it. The recruits are uneasy the following night in the barracks. Jeremy thinks he sees Tan's ghost, for instance. Making matters worse, the next morning Jeremy receives word that his father passed away. The next day, while out walking, Jeremy sees an old woman gesturing to him silently; Lim and Dragon do not. That evening Chester starts banging his head against the lockers, then speaking in a weird voice. They bring in a priest for Chester; the rites seem to help a bit. Chester shows Jeremy where he and Tan had a strange experience. Something had grabbed Tan's leg and Chester had beaten it off with his rifle butt. Jeremy's dream about Chester dying comes true soon enough. Jeremy meets the two principal characters from a couple of the ghost stories told early in the film. Dragon, Lim, and the sergeant find Jeremy, but do not see the ghosts themselves. Jeremy returns home, and the gift he thought he never had lets him see his dead father. The movie jump shifts forward in time, and the ghost story cycle starts again. -----Scores------ Cinematography: 8/10 A bit bland, but always competent. Sound: 8/10 A bit bland, but always competent. It was loud enough for a Chinese speaker to understand, and perhaps a quarter of the conversation is in English. The subtitles were fine. Acting: 10/10 Wonderful. Screenplay: 8/10 Moves along well. |
| User ReviewJon Rthree quarters of the way through this movie, I regretted the time I'd spent. At the end, I was glad. As a life-long American, I admit that I like Asian films because of the differences in (pop?) culture you can detect in them. The dialog is often a bit alien to me, so the way tension is resolved is interesting: some aspects of it I can identify with, and some I cannot. Up til the three quarter mark, I was frustrated by the inscrutable motivations most characters seemed to have for what they said & did minute-by-minute. Their reactions to various things really didn't make much sense to me. I've come to recognize some of this (with Asian films in general) as a loss due to translation - which is why I guess I'm more tolerant of their films than I would be in a western film. Still, at the 3/4 mark, it felt like I just needed to see the end in order to forget it. The last quarter, though, turned the movie around for me. Giving it three stars, I wont claim it was earth shattering - but it was the kind of ending which tuned the movie from "bad horror" to "less-than-well-executed ghost story" - and this is why I liked it. It could have ended differently and more predictably, but it didn't, and for me that's why I enjoyed it quite a bit. I wouldn't recommend this to someone unless I knew they really enjoyed scary/creepy. There are scarier & creepier movies out there, but this one has some good feedback on human regret and sadness, which I really hadn't seen coming - and enjoyed it for that reason. |