Movies
Part 3 in this popular Taiwanese horror franchise. I still haven't seen the first film, but that's hardly a bother. The plot is pretty simple, the setup hasn't changed all that much either. This is a pretty basic Asian horror flick centered around ghosts, if you've seen a couple of them you probably know the drill. Guan Yu comes from a family of Tao masters but doesn't want to continue this legacy. Instead, he dreams of being a parcours influencer. When a woman visits his temple, his life is about to change. In one of his videos, his followers find proof of a ghost. Yu's friend thinks it's a good way to grow his audience. The handycam aesthetic coupled with proper Taiwanese photography makes for a fine mix, that's about the only thing that sets this film apart from the rest though. It's not bad when you're in the mood for Asian horror, but it's not a film that will leave a strong impression. Decent horror filler.Read all
I never saw the first film, but that usually not a big problem with Asian horror cinema. Shih-Han Liao was allowed to make the follow-up to his first film for Netflix, which probably means the original one was quite popular in Taiwan. Must've been a local thing then, as I couldn't really see what's so special about this one. A Thai Demon goes ballistic in Taiwan. He jumps from one person to the next in a desperate attempt to be reborn as a human. He's eying Jia-min, a young girl who has a feel for the supernatural. A Taoist monk chases the demon down, but he's crafty and always finds a way to escape the monk's spells. The Rope Curse 2 is a pretty basic horror flick. The cinematography is a bit better than average, the Taoist rituals are a nice deviation from the norm and it's quite a surprise to see Kang-sheng Lee headlining a film like this. On the other hand Liao fails to really drive up the tension and the overreliance on CG doesn't really help the scares. Decent, but not great.Read all