The Tag-Along 2

红衣小女孩2

Taiwan, 2017, colour, 2.35:1, 106 mins.

Director: Cheng Weihao 程伟豪.

Rating: 5/10.

Slightly slicker and bigger-budgeted than the original, this Taiwan horror is let down by a shaky script.

STORY

Dakeng hills, Taizhong, Taiwan, 2014. A group of Thai illegals logging in the forest find a severed head and then disappear. Their supervisor, Zhang Minghao (Huang Denghui), is then attacked by a female goblin 魔神仔 who keeps calling his name. Two years later, in 2016, Taizhong social worker Li Shufen (Yang Chenglin) and her colleague Liu (Hong Qunjun) visit the flat of Lin Meihua (Gao Huijun) and her young daughter Lin Yongqing following a tip-off from a neighbour that the latter hasn’t been seen for a year. Lin Meihua says her daughter is staying with relatives in the countryside but Li Shufen and Liu find the flat is full of shamanistic paraphernalia and Lin Meihua’s own body is covered in anti-spell tattoos. Inside a room they find a young girl whose body is similarly covered. Back home, Li Shufen discovers her teenage daughter Li Yating (Zhan Wanru) is seven weeks’ pregnant by her teenage boyfriend Lin Junkai (Wu Nianxuan). Despite her mother’s urging, Li Yating refuses to have an abortion. Li Shufen visits the young Lin Yongqing who is now in a nursery; outside, her mother begs Li Shufen to let her daughter come back home but Li Shufen refuses. However, Li Shufen then discovers her own daughter has gone missing. She visits Lin Junkai at Fude temple in the Dakeng hills where, under the guidance of his grandfather (Long Shaohua), a temple official, he is a spirit medium, acting like a tiger when possessed. He says he hasn’t seen Li Yating for a fortnight. After three days an official search is launched, as CCTV footage has shown her being led into the forest by a young girl in a red dress. At the same time, a group from Fude temple, led by a possessed Lin Junkai, is also searching for Li Yating, as he thinks she’s been abducted by a local goblin. Outside an abandoned hospital he finds one of Li Yating’s shoes; inside, Li Shufen finds her daughter’s mobile phone – as well as a heavily pregnant woman gorging on slimy insects. She is former radio host Shen Yijun (Xu Weining), who went missing the previous year while searching for her baby daughter. Li Shufen takes her home and asks her for help in finding her own daughter, whom Shen Yijun says is trapped in a mystical domain. Li Shufen also asks Lin Junkai to help out with his special powers. She visits Lin Meihua, who says Li Yating’s disappearance is the work of the young girl in a red dress. Then Shen Yijun turns up at the flat, becomes possessed by the girl in red’s spirit, and furiously attacks Lin Meihua.

REVIEW

Taking up some themes only hinted at in the 2015 original, The Tag-Along 2 红衣小女孩2 is a fairly seamless continuation of the saga that’s slightly slicker and bigger-budgeted – in the meantime, director Cheng Weihao 程伟豪 had shot and released the ambitious crime drama Who Killed Cock Robin 目击者 (2017) – yet not as impressive overall. Cheng, then 33, shows the same talent for low-key atmosphere, careful direction, and subtle manipulation of the soundtrack; but the screenplay – by returning journeyman Jian Shigeng 简士耕, plus TVD writer Yang Wanru 杨宛儒 – is too often confused and needlessly obscure. Like the original, it was never released in the Mainland (as it gives no rational explanation for the story) but was an even bigger success in Taiwan than the first film, taking NT$105 million, an amazing sum for a local horror movie.

Inspired by the same Hokkien superstition of a young female goblin 魔神仔 who leads people astray in forests, the film appears to start afresh as a social worker in Taizhong, central Taiwan, investigates a tip-off about a mother possibly abusing her young daughter and stumbles on a story of shamanistic superstition in which the mother is terrified of a Young Girl in Red (the meaning of the film’s Chinese title). Meanwhile, the social worker has a bolshie teenage daughter who’s pregnant by her equally young boyfriend who also happens to be a spirit medium at a temple in some haunted hills. Half an hour in, the social worker, while searching for her missing daughter, comes across the heroine of the first film, who’s now totally crazed and searching for her daughter.

The film thus becomes a very female-centric yarn about motherhood, with three women all searching for their daughters who are victims of the evil goblin. This time the film does offer a solution to the identity of the girl goblin, though the explanation is both confused and confusing as the script implodes in the final 40 minutes. Unlike the first film, which managed to sustain itself across 90 minutes despite a pretty thin story, this one shows stretch marks at over 100 minutes, and could profitably do with 15 minutes of tightening. Characters tend to talk in riddles to each other prior to a Big Explanation, and the lazy script device of no mobile-phone signal is used too often – all of which is at odds with the care in Cheng’s direction and the creaky, susurrating soundtrack (again created by composer Li Mingjie 李铭杰).

With an established star, singer-actress Yang Chenglin 杨丞琳, then 33, as the social worker, indigenous actress-singer Gao Huijun 高慧君, 45, as the loony mother, and returning actress Xu Weining 许伟甯, 33, as the third woman, the film has a strong line-up of female leads, though Xu’s role is a pale shadow of hers in the first film and Gao, also under a lot of hair, does little more than look wild-eyed. The de-glammed but still commanding Yang (lesbian drama Spider Lilies 刺青, 2007; horror The Child’s Eye 3D 童眼, 2010) carries most of the film with a little bit of help from Wu Nianxuan 吴念轩, 22, okay as her daughter’s boyfriend. As the whiney daughter, first-timer Zhan Wanru 詹宛儒, also 22 and a first-timer, is fine but stuck in an annoying role. Visual effects are variable and more copious this time; widescreen photography by Chen Qiwen 陈麒文 (Who Killed Cock Robin) is equally good.

Following TTA2, a prequel centred on another urban legend, The Devil Fish 人面鱼  红衣小女孩外传 (2018), directed by Zhuang Xuanwei 庄绚维 and starring well-known Taiwan actress-singer Xu Ruoxuan 徐若瑄 [Vivian Hsu], was released in late 2018 but was not as successful as the two original films, taking some NT$70 million. It was co-written by Jian but Cheng was not involved.

CREDITS

Presented by CMC Entertainment (TW), Damou Entertainment (TW), Sky Films Entertainment (TW), Lots Home Entertainment (TW), HIM International Music (TW), Showtime International (TW), Ambassador Theatres (TW), Once Upon a Story (TW), The Tag-Along (TW). Produced by The Tag-Along (TW).

Script: Jian Shigeng, Yang Wanru. Photography: Chen Qiwen. Editing: Xie Mengru. Music: Li Mingjie. Art direction: Guo Yijun. Styling: Song Guanyi. Sound: Li Mingjie, Xiaofeixia, Warren Santiago, Richard Hocks. Visual effects: Li Shaohua, Ye Renhao (TWR Entertainment).

Cast: Yang Chenglin (Li Shufen), Xu Weining (Shen Yijun), Gao Huijun (Lin Meihua), Long Shaohua (Long, Lin Junkai’s grandfather), Huang He (He Zhiwei), Liu Yinshang (He Wen Shufang, He Zhiwei’s grandmother), Huang Denghui (Zhang Minghao), Zhan Wanru (Li Yating, Li Shufen’s daughter), Wu Nianxuan (Lin Junkai/Hu Ye/Tiger Lord, Li Yating’s boyfriend), Lin Yizhen (younger Lin Yongqing, Lin Meihua’s daughter), Lin Zhirou (older Lin Yongqing, Lin Meihua’s daughter; girl in red dress), Hong Qunjun (Liu, Li Shufen’s colleague).

Release: Taiwan, 25 Aug 2017.