SEPT 14 — With the number of movies, especially Asian ones, opening on a weekly basis in Malaysian cinemas, it’s really easy to overlook or miss out on the good ones.
Opening on the same weekend as the heavily promoted Hollywood title Beetlejuice Beetlejuice means that any new Asian title doing so runs the very real risk of getting lost in the shuffle, drowned out by all the noise generated by the PR machine behind a big budget Hollywood flick.
With that in mind, I would like to highlight one particular Asian film which opened in local cinemas last week that fully deserves to be discovered by Malaysian cinemagoers.
Despite the fact that it’s co-produced by Sony Pictures International, it’s a film that would’ve totally flown under my radar if not for the fact that I somehow stumbled upon a piece of news or writeup on the film that mentioned that it was directed by Taiwanese filmmaker John Hsu, who previously did the excellent Detention a few years back.
I suspect the marketing by Sony over here is, understandably, targeted more towards the local Chinese-speaking market, which is probably why the film flew under my radar before I found out that it’s a John Hsu film.
Now that I’ve seen it, I think it would be a shame if the rest of Malaysia never gets to find out what a delightful film this one is, and how it can effortlessly cut across any language border by being so universal in its themes and spirit, a fact that’s clearly supported by the extremely good word-of-mouth it’s been getting since it premiered at the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival.
Playing like a cross between Beetlejuice, Monsters Inc and A Ghost Waits, the film imagines (and builds) a world that would be familiar to all of us Malaysians, incorporating well-known Chinese customs and culture when it comes to the dead and the afterlife like the Hungry Ghost and Qingming festivals, adding another layer to the proceedings by setting up a world where scaring the living (which is why I mentioned Monsters Inc) is a whole industry in the afterlife, complete with talk shows and awards shows celebrating the top ghosts/haunters of the day.
The film’s cold open sets this whole thing up, introducing us to the character of Catherine (Sandrine Pinna), showing us how she and her team go about setting up her trademark scare and killer move, before cutting to an interview in which we’re then introduced to her protégé Jessica (Eleven Yao), setting up an All About Eve-style rivalry that will continue throughout the film.
But these two are not the film’s main characters, as that honour belongs to Rookie (Gingle Wang), a timid and nerdy looking young woman who has recently died.
One day Rookie starts to glitch, and after doing some research finds out that she is now in danger of being forgotten, and that she now has 30 days to do something about it before disappearing completely.
Why this is so, I’ll leave it for you to find out as it’s this dilemma/crisis that provides the film with its big, beautiful, beating heart.
Hsu does brilliantly in setting this up by only providing vital information in piecemeal fashion, with each new revelation cracking our hearts a little bit more until we’re feeling the same heartache that Rookie feels as the film progresses.
One way to avoid disappearing is to obtain a renewable “haunter’s licence”, which guarantees a ghost’s existence, as long as they’re still relevant and scary, which also means that Rookie can keep checking up on her family from the outside looking in every now and then.
This is where Catherine comes in, as Rookie is discovered by talent agent Makoto (Chen Bo-Lin) and forces Catherine to take Rookie in as her new protégé.
Hsu has a field day setting up one hilarious comedic set-piece after another as Rookie (and therefore the audience) is put through the paces, learning the rules of this afterlife and the steps that need to be taken to earn her haunter’s licence.
From learning how to make herself visible to the living to the many failed attempts at figuring out her “killer move”, there are plenty of opportunities for the audience to howl with laughter, and even though some of the CGI work here can be considered a bit cheap and dodgy, the film totally excels when it comes to its practical gore effects and the buckets of blood splashed around the haunting set-pieces, and the cheerful nature of the whole enterprise will make you able to forget the slightly cheap-looking CGI because the audience will either be too busy laughing or quietly contemplating the more emotional beats of the film.
Looking very much like a mainstream Japanese horror-comedy, Hsu and his filmmaking team have crafted a fun, funny and surprisingly heartfelt crowd pleaser, which I think is an instant horror-comedy classic and is surely one of the best mainstream films of 2024.
Don’t let the fact that it’s a Taiwanese film dissuade you, this one’s a must-see.
