The Death Is Here III
笔仙惊魂3
China, 2014, colour, 2.35:1, 99 mins.
Director: Guan Er 关尔.
Rating: 5/10.
Effective, modestly budgeted scarefest that’s smoother overall than the original film.
STORY
A city in central China, the present day. Studying hard for her graduation, chemistry student Gao Mo (Yu Xintian) has been suffering from ghostly visions of a mysterious young woman she recognises. Her doctor recommends she takes a short break, so Gao Mo joins a backpacking group, led by Zhang Yu (Guo Xin), that’s going to the mountains for a few days as a final get-together before they all go their separate ways. Apart from Zhang Yu and Gao Mo, the group comprises basketball stud Li Mingzhe (Lang Peng), his girlfriend Jiang Xiaoxue (Fu Man), flirty Hai Lun (Guo Yan) who fancies Li Mingzhe, and Yu Shuai (Xue Fei) who fancies Hai Lun. They have a local guide, Ji (Kaka), who is respectful of local superstitions. After Hai Lun upsets a river raft by coming on to Li Mingzhe, the group loses its satellite phone and then its way in a forest, ending up at an abandoned, 200-year-old courtyard house, where they spend the night. Five of them, excluding Gao Mo, play the ouija board-like game bixian 笔仙, in which they seem to make contact with a vengeful female spirit. Next day Ji is nowhere to be found and everyone, except Hai Lun, goes in search of him, but without luck. On their return, Hai Lun shows them a bloody dress she’s found, and says she knows whose it is. The group decides to leave immediately; but after getting lost in the forest again, and finding pieces of Ji’s clothing marked in blood, they end up back at the house. In bed that night, Hai Lun explains to Gao Mo that the dress is that of Ai Wei’er (Zhu Jiaxi), one of their group who disappeared on an identical backpacking holiday two years earlier. During the night, Yu Shuai’s mobile phone suddenly starts working and a ghostly picture of Ai Wei’er appears on it. After he tells Jiang Xiaoxue, she becomes hysterical and says the spirit of Ai Wei’er is out for revenge.
REVIEW
After Hong Kong’s Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To] made a sequel without an original (Romancing in Thin Air 高海拔之恋II, 2012), China’s one-man genre industry Guan Er 关尔 – seven films in the past five years – presumably decided he could skip straight to The Death Is Here III 笔仙惊魂3 without passing through II. However, the producers of the Chinese Bunshinsaba 笔仙 cycle, directed by South Korea’s An Byeong-gi 안병기 | 安兵基, saw it another way – as a second hit-and-run on its franchise, by releasing a few weeks earlier and using the word bĭxiān 笔仙 (literally, “pen fairy”, an ouija board-like game) in the title. All that apart, Death III is an effective, modestly budgeted horror movie that has at least as many “scares” as the higher-profile Bunshinsaba 3 笔仙3 and makes a lot more sense on a narrative level.
Two years on from the original The Death Is Here 笔仙惊魂 (2012), Guan has also turned in a much slicker product. Between the two films, he made The Supernatural Events on Campus 校花诡异事件 (2013) and romantic comedy Love Story 爱爱囧事(2013), and there’s a sense in Death III of his regular team (writers Liang Xiaoxiao 梁潇潇 and Zhu Bei 朱孛, d.p. Li Hongjian 李红建, art director Ma Hongtao 马红涛) having settled down into a smooth rhythm. As generic as it is, Death III looks fine and doesn’t hang around, rapidly establishing the main characters (six university students who are about to graduate) before sending them on a short backpacking break where they’re gradually killed off in a remote (i.e. no phone signal) and abandoned (i.e. spooky) old house – maybe by a vengeful “pen fairy”.
Even though the setting of an old house is similar, the story and characters have no connection with the original film, and they’re also marginally more interesting, as student fodder goes. Top-billed Guo Yan 郭艳, 27, the trashy passenger in horror Horrible Carpooling (诡拼车, 2013), stands out as the initially annoying flirt-queen, while Yu Xintian 余心恬, 27, is okay as the cute eye-candy who represents the audience’s POV. The only returnee from the original film’s cast, actress Fu Man 付曼, 24, is also okay, without making any great impression, as the one girl in the group with a regular boyfriend. (Fu and Yu later co-starred in dormitory horror Mid-July Days 七月半之恐怖宿舍, 2015.) Among the men, Guo Xin 郭鑫 is the most charismatic, as the leader of the backpackers, though more in the early stages than the latter.
The same could be said for the film as a whole, which is stronger on build-up than resolution. This being a Mainland horror, the viewer knows there will be a logical explanation for everything, and the script settles that problem OK. But the finale is weak on action after all the waiting; better is a small twist that replays an early scene in a fuller version and provides extra information on a leading character.
The running time is about right for the material, and the creepy sound-effects score is used in a focused way rather than laid on with a trowel. Mountain exteriors were shot in the Wulong region, east of Chongqing, central China.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Jersey Films (CN), Shenzhen Jersey Films (CN).
Script: Liang Xiaoxiao, Zhu Bei. Photography: Li Hongjian. Editing: Liu Zhao. Art direction: Ma Hongtao. Styling: Zhao Hong. Sound: Xu Mingfei, Qu Peng. Executive direction: Zhang Weidong, Wang Ming.
Cast: Guo Yan (Hai Lan), Yu Xintian (Gao Mo), Guo Xin (Zhang Yu), Lang Peng (Li Mingzhe), Fu Man (Jiang Xiaoxue), Wu Yunfei (Guan, doctor), Xue Fei (Yu Shuai), Zhu Jiaxi (Ai Wei’er), Kaka (guide), Zheng Huixin (Tuantuan, girl in forest), Wang Yujia (Dudu, Gao Mo’s college friend).
Release: China, 4 Apr 2014.