Gwai wik (2006)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Directors:

Oxide Pang Chun
Danny Pang

Writers:

Cub Chin (written by)
Sam Lung (written by)

Release Date:

1 July 2006 (Hong Kong)

Genre:

Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

The abandoned don't just disappear.

Plot:

After writing three best-sellers about love story based on her own experiences, the successful writer...

Plot Keywords:

Trauma | Family Relationships | Spirituality | Other World | Betrayal

Awards:

3 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Angelica Lee	...	Tsui Ting-Yin (as Lee Sinje)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ekin Cheng
Lawrence Chou	...	Lawrence
Siu-Ming Lau	...	Old Man
Rain Li
Jetrin Wattanasin
Yaqi Zeng	...	Ting-yu

Also Known As:

Gui yu (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)
Re-cycle (International: English title)

MPAA:

Rated R for frightening and disturbing images.

Runtime:

108 min

Country:

Thailand | Hong Kong

Language:

Mandarin | Cantonese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Malaysia:18PL | Singapore:PG | Hong Kong:IIB | Australia:M | Germany:16 | Finland:K-15 | USA:R | Italy:VM14

Company:

Magic Head Film Production Co.

Starts like a typical Asian horror movie then gets rather different.

This movie has a writer who has some trouble in her life at the particular moment the movie starts. An old love has resurfaced and she is having difficulty with her next novel. She is seemingly being haunted by a figure she wrote about, but then tossed away then she is somehow pulled into another realm. The movie does start off a bit slowly as there is a bit of set up with a few scares here and there like the typical Asian horror movie. Then when she gets to the other realm the movie is suddenly totally cool as it is so like watching a Silent Hill movie instead. I mean these strange ghosts start chasing our heroine and they move just like the ghosts in Silent Hill 4, she encounters a cliff like in any of the Silent Hill games and she enters an area that looks like the industrialized zone in part 4. Then she runs into an old man and the movie slams on the breaks and you get a few more great visual scenes, but the movie never has the energy it did when the heroine first enters this strange realm. There are still a couple of good visuals such as the mysterious creepy hanging people and the bridge and well. However, there are a few to many scenes that seem to need a push as it takes a while for them to get going and there are a lot of talking scenes and the final confrontation is very anti climatic. Then the ending comes and they throw a twist on top of the rather predictable twist and movie over. All I could think is what could have been if we had more scenes like that where she first arrived rather than say the scene with the flowers and neglected dead people which had no energy and rather light music. This movie also seems to want to be original, but it does not even come close. Other than Silent Hill there is also bits of The Neverending Story, Wizard of Oz, Spirited Away, and a host of other movies. I guess the makers of this film wanted to recycle a lot of other ideas where they might have been better off using just one or two.