A young doctorate student in psychology (Song Jia) is angling for a prized position as assistant to a renowned expert in the field. Feeling that her classmate (Asiru) may be the one chosen for the job, she has sex with her teacher – who’s in charge of choosing the assistant – in exchange for the position. When her boyfriend (Zhu Hongjia) realizes what she’s done, they get into a heated argument, during which he slips and falls headfirst on the corner of a table. Thinking he’s dead and fearing she might be accused of having killed him, she calls her teacher and begs him to help her dispose of the body. Soon thereafter she’s starts being plagued by mysterious sleepwalking episodes and visions of her dead boyfriend. Originality, fear or surprise are not to be found in this languid little horror film, which laudably never resorts to jump scares, but nevertheless unfolds in an entirely predictable way, down to the exposition-heavy finale and debunking of what initially looked like paranormal instances. This is, after all, a Mainland Chinese horror film. One keeps hoping some Chinese director will one day find a clever way to get around the SARFT‘s censorship of supernatural elements, but Zhang Qi (who later helmed the equally contrived The Devil Inside Me) isn’t the chosen one. He does know how to conjure creeping dread, but that dread never goes anywhere compelling, wasting Song Jia’s subtle, affecting performance. *1/2
HELP (2007) short review
Posted by LP Hugo on May 24, 2016
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2016/05/24/help-2007-short-review/
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