The Abandoned

This Taiwanese police procedural is a dull, lifeless film that simply goes through the motions without reaching any discernible high points.

It begins with the usual hook for this genre: a serial killer makes life hard for a depressed detective, who has to come to terms with herself while chasing the madman with the help of her rookie colleague. That would be fine if the plot presented at least a few fresh ingredients throughout the runtime, but it just settles into a predictable rut and never manages to lift above it.

I can't quite say this is a terrible film since it is competently shot and acted well enough, I guess. But the writing is unexceptional, and even pretty weak at times, given that a few scenes come across as comical when they were obviously meant to be serious. Absolutely no surprises or interesting character work are at store for the viewer, and I believe that won't cut it for many genre fans.

It is available on Netflix for anyone interested, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Cha wu ci xin (The Abandoned) was one of the movies that I was waiting to watch. I had high expectations from this movie but my expectations did not match after watching the movie's ending. I can tell you that it is a really good movie until the ending of it. Janine Chang is a really good actress and I think that she should appear in TV Series and movies of the West. Nevertheless, I cannot say the same for Chloe Xiang because she is really overacting and it is obvious. The atmosphere of this movie is a bit depressive and if you are suicidal, you should stay away from this movie. I give 5 points out of 10 for this one because of it's ending. It could be much much better if the movie had a different ending and less emphasis on suicidal tendencies.

Never heard of it before. Not a single review on IMDB. Saw that Dread Central gave it 4/5 stars. Gave it a shot. Fast paced, kept my attention, and I'd definitely recommend it. I needed to really pay attention and the movie was good enough that I didn't mind. It's not "Se7en" but it's absolutely worth a watch. While watching it I found that I stopped scrolling on my phone about 5 minutes in and never started up again all the way through. That's usually my personal test on whether I'd recommend a movie or not. If you liked Se7en, Gone Girl, or I Saw the Devil, then you should give this a watch.

The story is interesting and the plot pulls you in even though it's not exactly surprising in terms of who did what, to whom and why. This is, in the end, a pretty standard "whodunnit". Found the actors' portrayal of the characters quite good and ended up researching more of their work precisely because of it. I was a bit annoyed by how incompetent the main character came across at times but thought I'd give her the benefit of the doubt since she was going through emotional trauma and pain. That being said, her boss was way more patient than most would have been. The younger police officer was funny and charming so I enjoyed their adding her to the story for a bit of an edge.

This movie is such a frustrating one to watch. I don't know it's because the screenplay writer lack of real experience of the Taiwanese police systems, or the writer really knew they are poorly trained, just a bunch of incapable morons who always failed and unable to solve any case.

How could these so-called detectives deal with the daily violent and murderous cases in Taiwan, if they are actually so lame?

This movie showing how stupid and incapable of the Taiwanese police force has inevitably make me jump to another question: If these Taiwanese cop armed with weapons are so weak and stupid, how they deal with the CCP when they invade this island and the whole society in panic?

But I have to repeat my irresistable complaint to the general shortcoming and weakness of all the Taiwanese movies. The horrible unnatural dialogue further spoiled by the poor delivery of all the Taiwanese actors or actresses. It seems once they have memorized the dialogue, every word out of their mouth simply felt so fake or even exaggerated. There's actually no realistic feelings or emotions in their dialogue, but awkward, pretentious and unreal. No real people in their daily lives would speak or talk like them. The Taiwanese screenplay writers never know how the real people in Taiwan actually speak or in real conversation. Then further foiled up by the usually poor talented Taiwanese actors and actresses, they just don't know how to talk like real people. This is the major reason why I have to stop watching Taiwanese movies after a short period, simply by losing patience and always felt uncomfortable to sit through. Almost every Taiwanese movie gave me the same feeling and outcome. It seems that Taiwanese actors, like oil and water, who never could put their acting together naturally with their dialogue.