Detention

If you expect to watch many jump scare in this series, you will be disappointed. Even this series is a horor genre, but this is love story drama. I'm very touching with the story, how the writer, director, and editor, serve and prepare this series beautifully. Thank you for all cast, crew and netflix for making this beautiful series

This Taiwanese opens in the 1960s as certain teachers and students are arrested for 'anti state' activities at the Greenwood School. The girl accused of informing on them commits suicide by jumping from the school roof. Thirty years later, in 1992, Yunxiang Liu transfers to the school. She immediately comes up against the school's strict regime. One day she explores the now out of bounds old school building where she meets the ghost of Ruixin Fang, the girl who died all those years ago. She also meets another student and befriends him. Over the course of the series more dangers appear, not all supernatural, and the truth about events in the '60s are revealed.

I thought this was a pretty impressive series. It started well with a prologue that got me hooked; as it continued I remained gripped. The threats are a nice mix of supernatural and all too human; to be honest I found the latter to be more disturbing. The school environment is oppressive with discipline being enforced by a retired military officer who still wears his uniform and thinks students should he treated like soldiers. Of course, although Taiwan is now a modern democracy, it was under martial law for a long time and certain oppressive laws were still in place at the time the series was set so this is believable. The cast is solid. Overall I'd recommend this to anybody looking for a somewhat different ghost story.

These comments are based on watching the series in Mandarin with English subtitles.

"Detention" is a slow-burn series with a great twist. While I don't know much about Chinese history, I can sense that they did a good job incorporating it into the storyline. Additionally, like many Chinese movies, the message is very profound and thought-provoking. It keeps me reflecting on the importance of facing difficulties instead of burying them and how love can be both beautiful and painful. The horror aspect of the series is not overly scary and avoids jump scares or grotesque ghosts, making it more psychologically intriguing than terrifying. Overall, it's a unique blend of horror, history, and emotional depth.

The first two episodes are okay But it goes south from there. Episode 5 is by far the worst, totally waste of time. If Espinosa 5 is made to make their relationship explicit, I would it's meaningless. If this is a horror, not terrible at at. If this is a love story, the relationship is so cliche and boring. If this is a psychological/mental, all you have is a fragile naive girl and a mental loser mom. Plots are so easily predicted. Either the writer loses his focus or the series has nothing to do with the movie. If you don't like the first two, no need to go further.

This series has a good plot and it is slightly different from the movie which is a good thing to me. This is a ghost story but barely a horror one. Well...there are one or two typical scary scenes in the earlier episodes, but that's all about it. If you expect to see an intense horror/thriller or fast-paced series, it is probably not one for you. However, there is a good story and the series is well made (the CG part needs some improvement tho).