Detention

Considering its original game, adaptation was so smoothly done. Not considering its original game, the way that this plot go is so brilliant!!

It perfactlly illustrated the society in the 60s in Taiwan. Most importantly, the government portraited in the film showed the value of democracy. People gone through all of the painful past only for a better world, the world with freedom. The film is categorized as a horror movie, it doesn't have a lot of jumping or sudden scenes that scares you. However, it's about Taiwanese's inner fear for the era that's full of pain and easily forgotten by people. The era can be known as Taiwan's darkest era, Detention, however, reminds Taiwanese their darkest era, which leads to the greatest fear within the society. The whole film is covered by horror, perhaps it's a little bit confusing, but the director used smart tricks to convey the horror to us. From all the elements above, Detention is an outstanding film, and it should be watched by all Taiwaneses. By the way, people should never forgot the painful history, it showed the greatness of the modern world, and for the people who sacrificed for the democracy nowadays, should be remembered forever.

The story is a tragedy during Taiwanese white terror period.(1949-1991) During this period the freedom of assembly and association are strictly forbidden. In this film, many people are sentenced to death for the reasons which are considered far from crimes today. The budget of this movie is less than 3 million US dollar. However the quality of this movie is much way better than it's cost. Good script. Good casting. Good directing. Good sound design. Good scoring. And excellent production design! Especially it was adapted from a computer game with the same title "Detention". It is very hard to adapt a computer game to a film, but they made it! Though the story still has some pacing problems, it's still an excellent work with this budget. I enjoyed this film very much.

There is novelty in the film Detention, it tries to be political, tries to be ideological and tries to be romantic. All of these elements are present and works, but the film is also messy and problematic, perhaps due to the film trying to stay loyal to the film. The film explores a fascinating piece of history in Taiwan that is not often talked about, but maybe if the setting could be done in a non-horror film format it would have worked better, because everything else is really good.

The movie shows what Taiwan was like back when KMT government refused to give citizens the rights of freedom, as a Taiwanese I'm so grateful that Taiwan now is a liberal and democratic country, thank you "Detention" for showing me how precious freedom is.