An OK only but not very good Taiwanese horror about mythical spirits
living in the woods and appearing as monkeys
or children. Evil spirits that is, if this film is to be believed, as
they are out to steal humans souls.
Maybe a Taiwanese equivalent to the Korean mythical Goomiho/Kumiho,
the many-tailed fox who also steals souls.
The extras on this DVD are without english subtitles, but obviously,
just like Bigfoot in North America or the Yeti etc.,
there are people that believes in the existance of Mosien, with blurry
faked footage/photos of children/Mosien
following people out trekking in the woods.
But the good thing about this film is - there's some
atmosphere here with the huge dark forests in the inner of Taiwan,
as also can be seen in the 2013 crime drama Soul (read more about this
film on my HK & China film page).
These mystical and beautiful forests, i can almost believe in these
forest spirits myself (and in Japan, the north-western
neighbour, some still do in their Shinto gods, the Kami, as seen in
i.a. Spirited Away).
The mood feels suitably dark and oppressive for a horror film and the
photo is nice .... BUT sometimes there's too much
CGI in a film for it's own good. Less is More. We should've seen much
less of the spirits/creatures and the ending of
this film ruins everything it has build up in mood and atmosphere. It
ends feeling like a Taiwanese Pang Brothers movie.
The Tag-Along, The Mosien ...... yes, here's the
proof that they do exist, camera footage never lies
Ho Chih-Wei (River Huang) lives with his old grandma
Wen (Liu Yin-Shang) in Taipei. He works as an estate agent
and he dreams of moving in with his girlfriend Yi-Chun (Wei Ning Hsu)
in their own apartment in central Taipei.
But, there has been disappearances where children have been seen escorting
the missing away from their homes,
and now grandma Wen disappears too. Then, Ho Chih-Wei disappears and
Yi-Chun has to sleuth around to find
some clues. The housings janitor, Uncle Kun (Chang Po-Chou) tries to
help with the arising little girl in red problem
but do encounter a very scary creature himself.
This film was a Super HIT in Taiwan, so maybe this folklore about The
Mosien is somewhat popular there
anamorphic widescreen, 5.1 or 2.0 mandarin audio with
english subtitles. Extras without subtitles - Behind the scenes
stuff (about 20 minutes of) and a Trailer. I liked the female artist
that sung when the end credits was rolling, nice song