Hm, it delivers the message well I guess
First-time reviewer here and English is not my first language, so please take the review with a grain of salt.I hope this will get another movie to continue since the ending made me go: "That's it??"
It's a solid movie, conveying the messages that it was supposed to, like an essay and argument delivered to the watchers. I missed the first few minutes of the film since I was late to the cinema, so there were some details I didn't catch. Towards half of the movie, the case was pretty much solved, very straightforwardly, which makes me wonder what they are going to do about the other half of the movie. They went down the route of making emotional scenes and social commentary. It was fine. Just don't watch it as a mystery, solving case kind of movie.
It was an interesting watch for me since it touches on how the social media/news industry works, specifically in China. Cinematography and effects were good. The storyline was predictable for me, still, I wasn't bored.
I only put rewatch value at 8 since, without the continuation, I would be kinda disappointed, the ending could have been smoother.
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This review may contain spoilers
I might be too sensitive but I thought this movie was offensive
I had high hopes because I saw the name of The Wailing's director in it but the movie was a disappointment. They give up halfway on their characters and storylines, leaving a lot of wasted potential that if done correctly could have been an argument for social issues.I don't know if the team that made this movie realized it or not but by discarding halfway their characters and plotline, the movie turned out to be offensive towards women. Firstly, by not explaining certain points and not delving deep enough into the characters, the movie portrayed women in a bad light. It gave the opportunity to interpret wrongly about the female characters (the woman shaman character, the mother, or the daughter, our main character). The problem was that all of these characters were not properly explained. I felt especially bad for our main character for being called names by her relative in the beginning, and other scenes (which I will not mention because I can't write too much spoiler), she was never given context on how she became like that or an explanation of why. They could have made it into the theme of overprotective mother, following outdated beliefs, and the concept of purity to build up and then portray the main character as a woman of a new generation, rebellious towards old perceptions. But no, they did not give any explanation, so our main character was stuck with (potentially) bad interpretation. Second, the cameraman was a male and he followed the main character, a female, into the female bathroom and the following scenes (which I will not elaborate due to spoiler rule). I thought that scene was unnecessary. It was insensitive and rude. Why would that scene contribute to the plot? Was it used as a horror element? If so, why would a scene like that be a horror? They shouldn't have included that scene. They could have had a woman following and filming the main character, and closing the camera/screen turned to black, leaving only voices to portray that scene. It was an unnecessary graphic.
Overall, the main character was portrayed in the wrong way, and the ending felt like it could be interpreted with a bad implication.
The movie felt vague, not in an intentional way, but in a way that they did not have explanation for the details they built in. The whole thing felt chaotic and a complete mess, just threw scary scenes in and hoping the audience freaked out.
Cinematography-wise, the idea of making it a documentary was good but they failed at executing it. The way they shot it did not give the creep and the aesthetic of horror at all. One of the ridiculous things was how the cameramen kept spawning at the end. One cameraman died, and the other immediately showed up.
I thought the movie would be exploring religion more in-depth but no, it was so surface-level. In the end, I still did not know what kind of deity is Ba Yan. At one point, they just abandoned that deity. The movie could have given us some basic rules, rituals, or myths about the religion to explain what kind of deity, what they are related to, and what is the connection of the main family with this deity (in a more in-depth way); the movie gave nothing. When the evil spirit came up, I was hoping we got a glimpse of what it was and some sort of explanation for it but in the end, the answer they gave us felt temporary, felt like they didn't know how to tie it up so they threw the answer in there and hoped it work.
The only good thing was the acting and it's why I have it a 2.
That is all I could remember for now but in conclusion, I thought it was offensive to women and lacked depth in every aspect.
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