BladeRunner2020

This is a sequel to Kurosawa's 'Before They Vanish', a movie he shouldn't have made. This movie is just bland, boring and bad with little to no screenplay or suspense. At least in Before they Vanish' the premise was fresh. Concept stealing Aliens was a good concept in itself. That movie was slow but had a suspense element from beginning to end.

This movie as a sequel has none to offer more. Just a different alien trying to steal concepts at a different part of Japan may be. I just don't get the need for this film. Looks like Kurosawa is stuck in a little trap that he created for himself. A world that is about to end, A man and a Woman trying to survive presented in a wafer thin plot and screenplay with no background music or whatsoever. The climax that always takes place in an abandoned warehouse or factory. I hope the director gets out of it and make good movies, I really enjoyed his 'Pulse'. It looks like Kurosawa made this film to fulfill his contractual obligations with the studio. Do yourself a favor and skip this one.

Like the other Thai horrors like 'Ladda Land' and 'Promise' this movie could have worked well as a drama. It looks like the director wanted to make a good drama about a naive village girl who comes to Bangkok to help her sick grandma but somewhere in the middle of the shooting the studio wanted him to do a horror film instead.

The only good element of this film is the acting. Almost everyone in this film from the lead actress to the lady playing her friend's role and other girls from the bar did a good job. The direction is sloppy with a bad screenplay. We don't really know why the grandma would teach her sweet grandchild a very dangerous black magic which could backfire if not treated properly. We don't know why a girl who was so reluctant to perform semi naked in front of foreigners the first couple of days would use deadly black magic to go ahead in the 'business'. We also don't why the Thai police chose to be incompetent and do nothing about the murders till the end. The narration of this film is so sloppy that sometimes its laughable.

3 stars for the acting and somewhat good first 40 minutes.

While I was expecting to watch a cheesy, jump scare driven asian ghost story, (which it was whenever the ghost appeared) I was pleasantly surprised to see an intense family drama. I mean this movie could have worked very well without all the spookiness. A story about a father's desperate attempts to do the best for is family.

I loved the pace of this film. The family's slow descent in to chaos, insanity and paranoia was well captured. The acting is top notch here especially from the actors playing father and the daughter. The tension between the relationship is what elevates this film. I also loved the direction and cinematography. I don't get why the director felt this has to be a ghost story.

The final minutes of the film will hit you hard and it was not because of any of those ghosts.

Story/Screenplay - 9/10 .

Ghost/spookyness - 4/10 .

Acting - 10/10 .

Cinematography - 9/10 .

Overall - 8/10