The Tag-Along
红衣小女孩
Taiwan, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 92 mins.
Director: Cheng Weihao 程伟豪.
Rating: 6/10.
Above-average Taiwan horror benefits from careful direction by first-time feature director Cheng Weihao.
STORY
Taibei, Taiwan, Apr 2015. Lin Lishui (Bai Minghua), 67, goes missing, and then one day, alone in her flat, her old friend He Wen Shufang (Liu Yinshang) hears Lin Lishui’s voice calling her. She slips over and a ghostly hand reaches out. Her grandson, property salesman He Zhiwei (Huang He), 26, takes his girlfriend of five years, radio host Shen Yijun (Xu Weining), to see a flat he’s put a down-payment on. She, however, says marriage is not in her plans at the moment, and the couple argue. He eventually takes her to He Wen Shufang’s flat, where he lives, for a meal his grandmother has prepared for them. He Wen Shufang appears not to be in, though He Zhiwei spots her leaving; she says she’s going to meet her friend Lin Lishui. He Wen Shufang, First Day 何文淑芳。 第一天. He Zhiwei oversleeps and finds his grandmother has already gone out. In the street outside the block of flats, Lin Lishui has re-appeared after being missing for seven days. He Zhiwei asks if she’s seen his grandmother, but she just keeps on saying “sorry”. At work he’s sent a digital camera with footage of his grandmother in a hiking party in the Wanlongkeng hills, in neighbouring Yilan county; following the party is a mysterious young girl in red. He Zhiwei discovers the camera belongs to Lin Lishui and that evening he and the block’s security guard, Lin Huokun (Zhang Bozhou), visit her flat. It’s empty but has a ghostly presence that scares them. Next day he and Shen Yijun watch CCTV footage showing He Wen Shufang leaving her flat two days earlier – i.e. before the couple came for dinner – and also walking in the street with a young girl in red. Later, He Zhiwen has nightmares in the flat; the next evening he meets Shen Yijun at her workplace but is obviously disturbed, and not well. After the couple go to the grandmother’s flat for a meal, he disappears. He Zhiwei, First Day 何志伟。 第一天. To help Shen Yijun, Lin Huokun exorcises the flat using local rituals. Then He Wen Shufang is found wandering on a highway and taken by police to hospital to recover. Lin Huokun believes she was possessed by the same type of goblin 魔神仔 that once possessed Lin Lishui. Shen Yijun does some research and finds it starts out by calling your name. The girl goblin’s next target is Lin Huokun. Shen Yijun is then told that, during routine tests, the hospital found a red-winged, devil’s-head hawk moth in He Wen Shufang’s stomach contents; the moth’s markings remind Shen Yijun of the girl goblin’s face on Lin Lishui’s camera. After He Wen Shufang disappears again into the Wanlongkeng hills, Shen Yijun arranges an official search-and-rescue mission to find He Zhiwen and his grandmother.
REVIEW
Following a handful of shorts, young Taiwan film-maker Cheng Weihao 程伟豪 makes an above-average feature debut with The Tag-Along 红衣小女孩, an atmospheric, carefully directed horror in which a young girl in red (the meaning of the Chinese title) haunts various people in and around Taibei. Unreleased in the Mainland – as the film offers no rational explanation for all the devilish goings-on – it took a very respectable NT$85 million on home territory, making it the highest-grossing local horror at the time.
Gaoxiong-born Cheng, then 31, studied film at National Taiwan University of Arts and made his first short in 2008, the 45-minute You Are Not Alone 搞什么鬼, about a young film-maker who finds himself haunted while writing a horror movie. The Tag-Along, written by journeyman Jian Shigeng 简士耕 (horror The Fatality 绝魂印, 2008; comedy-drama New Perfect Two 新天生一对, 2012; hit comedy David Loman 大尾鲈鳗, 2013), was inspired by a Taiwan urban myth dating from 1998 in which a mysterious young girl with a ghostly face was supposedly filmed following some hikers (hence the film’s English title) in the hills around Taizhong.
The film takes this tidbit of Hokkien superstition about a goblin 魔神仔 that specialises in getting people lost and spins an atmospheric horror yarn around a young couple and the man’s grandmother that gains most of its traction from Cheng’s direction rather than Jian’s script, which is a tad jerky in its development and sometimes deliberately obscure. It does have a few interesting touches – the girl, a radio presenter, doesn’t want to get married and pregnant yet; the granny is a strong character in her own right; and there’s a strong feel for local superstitions throughout – but the screenplay tends to work in episodes rather than as an evolving drama, and finally offers no explanation for all the shenanigans.
It’s Cheng’s careful framing and shooting, his manipulation of the subtle soundtrack effects and music (both by Li Mingjie 李铭杰), and slow building of relationships that makes The Tag-Along a cut above the genre’s norm. The moments of sheer horror are relatively brief but all the more shocking when they break the surface of what is almost a drama with horrific moments than a conventional horror movie. Visual effects are okay and sometimes more so.
The all-local cast is generally fine. Then 26, Huang He 黄河 (My Mandala 原来你还在, 2013) is okay as the male lead but largely outclassed by top-billed Xu Weining 许伟甯, 30, as his longtime girlfriend, and by veteran Liu Yinshang 刘引商, 78, whose credits stretch back to Taiwan’s first long-form TV drama series (Jingjing 晶晶, 1969), as his dogged old gran. Born in Taiwan to an Italian American father and local mother, Xu, whose looks recall French-Taiwan actress Zhang Rongrong 张榕容 [Sandrine Pinna], was then a model-turned-TV actress just breaking into leading film roles (Design 7 Love 相爱的七种设计, 2014), and here she proves up to the task when called upon to carry most of the film’s second half (and especially the forest finale, almost a mini-movie of its own). Another Taiwan veteran, Zhang Bozhou 张柏舟, contributes some Hokkien colour as a security guard who practises shamanistic rituals.
The elegant widescreen visuals by Chen Keqin 陈克勤 (Shuttle Life 分贝人生, 2017) are a plus throughout. Also notable is the film’s main-title design, which hints at the underlying, molecular story that only surfaces in the sequel.
CREDITS
Presented by Blossom Entertainment (TW), CMC Entertainment (TW), Sky Films Entertainment (TW), Once Upon a Story (TW).
Script: Jian Shigeng. Photography: Chen Keqin. Editing: Gao Mingsheng, Wang Jingqiao. Music: Li Mingjie. Art direction: Lin Zhongxian. Styling: Wang Yuwen. Sound: Chen Weiliang, Richard Hocks, Traithep Wongpaiboon. Sound effects: Li Mingjie. Visual effects: Li Shaohua (TWR Entertainment). Main-title design: JL Design.
Cast: Xu Weining (Shen Yijun), Huang He (He Zhiwei), Liu Yinshang (He Wen Shufang), Zhang Bozhou (Lin Huokun), Lin Yizhen, Yang Jiayun, Chen Liangtong, Chen Lingfan (girl in red dress), Huang Shiqi (mother of baby), Mario [Bu Guogeng] (He Zhiwei’s boss), Bai Minghua (Lin Lishui), Jin Meiman (Auntie Li), Lin Sijie (search-and-rescue team head).
Premiere: Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (Closing Film), 19 Nov 2015.
Release: Taiwan, 27 Nov 2015.