Nu guiqiao 2: Yuan gui lou

TIME WASTING...KHANKI MAGI MOVIE.... "Khankir Chele" (translating roughly to "The Whore's Son") is not a movie that tiptoes around sensitive issues. Directed by emerging filmmaker Shafiq Rahman, this intense social drama dives headfirst into the underbelly of society, exploring themes of identity, shame, stigma, and self-discovery. With a name as provocative as its premise, "Khankir Chele" sets out to disturb, engage, and ultimately challenge viewers to rethink the way we judge and marginalize others.

The story follows Rakib, a young man growing up in the slums of Dhaka, known mostly as "Khankir Chele" due to his mother's occupation as a sex worker. From his earliest days, Rakib is ridiculed, beaten, and ostracized, not for anything he has done, but simply because of who his mother is. Society stamps him as dirty, criminal, and unwanted before he ever gets a chance to speak for himself.

Having watched the 2020 horror movie "The Bridge Curse" and finding it to be mediocre, I can't really claim that I was particularly thrilled when I stumbled upon the 2023 sequel "The Bridge Curse: Ritual" here in 2024. But of course I opted to sit down and watch it, after all it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen.

And who knows, maybe it would prove better than the first movie. So of course I opted to give director Lester Hsi's 2023 movie a fair chance.

Writers Keng-Ming Chang, Po-Hsiang Hao and Shih-Yuan Lu put together a script and storyline that felt like a heap of random scenes written and shot independently of one another, and then handed over to director Lester Hsi to put together and attempt to make a coherent movie. It didn't really work out, because there was a horrifying lack of red thread throughout the course of the movie, and that made for a somewhat disjointed and boring viewing experience.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but it should be said that the acting performances were actually fair. They had a good group of actors and actresses put together to portray the various characters in the movie.

And the title of the movie "The Bridge Curse: Ritual" just made zero sense when you look at the narrative and the contents of the script that the writers managed to concoct.

My rating of "The Bridge Curse: Ritual" lands on a three out of ten stars.

The film, from horror powerhouse Taiwan, starts with an interesting angle: students are working on an Augmented Reality video game based on a haunted, er, university. Said students (who are as dim-witted as most characters in this type of story) test out their game on location (why they need to test out the game when it's nearing completion rather than early on in the development process is unclear). The actual ghosts soon start layering with the AR gaming, which is an original approach and fairly interesting (what is really there and where??). We get a number of point of view shots from CCTV cameras and the gamers' equipment, and when handled well such subjective shots are always a great strategy to immerse viewers and turn up the horror quotient. Yet the film soon leaves that idea behind to focus on the real ghosts, which is a shame because everything becomes much more pedestrian at that point. Thankfully the visual dynamic is replaced by narrative ingenuity as a late twist shakes things up and saves the film... until a final revelation that's too rushed to have much impact (and perhaps the fact that I haven't seen the first film doesn't help). In the end the film is ok but clearly had potential for more.

This story happens an year before the last film's events which itself juggled between two timelines. A sister is hellbent on freeing her brother who is now comatose after trying to experiment with the elevator game just so that he can fine tune his video game. The sister with her gang, goes back to the cursed building to know the facts for herself and is in for a rude Shock as the ghosts have made it into the real world through that game and aren't waiting for the leap year. With the help from a familiar face, will she be able to save her brother and end the curse on time, forms rest of the story.

The problem with this unexciting film, like it's predecessor is it's uninteresting story and the way they try to pack everything in the screenplay, crossing off every other template on the horror genre checklist. It gets tiresome too soon as much of the ghost scenes are heavily CGI driven and CGI not being good is just the bonus. Then, there are these underwritten characters providing nobody to root for and the fact the first film had a timeline of 2020, it is more or less easy to predict what exactly happened in 2019 without having to wait till the climax or mid credits scene. As there will be third film, if they atleast attempt to have an engaging screenplay to some extent then it'll be a miracle.

From the very beginning, it becomes painfully clear that this film is an exercise in frustration. The plot-or what passes for one-attempts to be complex and engaging but instead spirals into an incoherent mess that leaves the audience confused and irritated. It's like being strapped into a rollercoaster that never stops spinning, a ride you can't escape from no matter how much you want to. Every time you think the film might be on the verge of redeeming itself, it takes another wild turn into absurdity, leaving you more baffled than before.

One of the biggest problems with this film is its sheer lack of direction. The narrative is so disjointed that it's impossible to follow any semblance of a coherent storyline. Characters are introduced and discarded with little to no explanation, subplots are started and then abandoned without resolution, and the pacing is so erratic that you're never quite sure what's happening or why you should care. It's as if the filmmakers threw every idea they had into a blender, hit "puree," and served the resulting mess to the audience without any consideration for logic or structure.

The film also suffers from an identity crisis. It seems to be unsure of what it wants to be-a thriller? A drama? A psychological horror? It tries to be all these things at once but fails spectacularly in each attempt. The tonal shifts are jarring and poorly executed, making it impossible to invest in the story or the characters. One minute, the film is trying to be dark and edgy, and the next, it's attempting (and failing) to inject humor into the proceedings. The result is a muddled, confused mess that doesn't know what it's trying to say or why.

The characters are another major issue. They're poorly written, flat, and unlikable. Not one of them is relatable or worth rooting for, and their motivations are either unclear or nonsensical. Watching them stumble through the plot is like watching puppets with their strings tangled-it's a frustrating, cringe-worthy experience. The actors do their best with what they're given, but even the most talented performers would struggle to bring life to these one-dimensional characters.

Visually, the film is a nightmare. The cinematography is bland and uninspired, with scenes that are either too dark to see what's happening or so overexposed that they hurt your eyes. The special effects, if you can call them that, are laughably bad-more suited to a low-budget student film than a professional production. The editing is choppy and inconsistent, adding to the overall sense of disorientation and confusion. It's as if every aspect of the film was designed to be as unpleasant and disorienting as possible.