Cha wu ci xin

I am struggling here whether to give this movie a four star rating or five star, I know it maybe some new here in between.

I saw this Netflix last night after reading it was a way above average thriller which unfortunately was not true.

Now don't get me wrong, the film was good and I did enjoy it but the whole movie itself was tense enough for it to be very good.

Some of the scenes came across as comical when they were not meant to be, I think if the pace of the movie had been slower and more tension was out into some scenes then we would be talking about a six or seven star rating.

Overall worth a watch and then forget about it.

A depressed policewoman (she is on the verge of suicide in the first shot of a film) investigates the murder of a young Thai woman whom she meets by chance. Other disappearances will follow. The bodies are mutilated. Is he a serial killer? She leads the investigation and manages to find out: it concerns a girl in an illegal situation in Taiwan; they arrive from Thailand. But some disappear and are found with missing organs.

Everything often takes place at night and often in the rain, in a dark, depressive atmosphere, very successful. Our investigator is not a superhero, and the Taiwanese police don't seem very efficient either. Janine Chun-Ning Chang carries the film and carries out the investigation with difficulty.

The film is a success in its genre. It maintains the viewer's attention until the culprit is identified and his confrontation with the policewoman.

I hope Justin Timberlake can forgive - on the other hand, maybe someone else will have done something with this title/phrase by the time you read this - and I do not even have to worry about telling you no pun intended ... until then, let's stay and stick with the thriller at hand. That has the inciting incident .... you guessed it right: at a river.

So if you like crime thrillers this already has some bonus or brownie points (or whatever is more to your liking). I have seen better movies than this of course, but this is at least decent, nominations can be an indicator for that too. Well shot and acted, the movie has a good pace and is well worth a watch - for those interested in a murder (mystery) story, that may be a bit different (though no entirely unpredictable)

They could have toned down the frequency of those flashbacks, because there were too many and they literally ruined the movie for me, they were so inconsistent and at times unnecessary too breaking the flow of the movie. But yeah you can give this a shot and you might even love this because they have created a good dark atmosphere around the plot which is really captivating and it compliments the story well. You may find the central reason of the plot (as to why the killer is killing) to be too silly but yeah the atmosphere that was created and the acting overshadows it. If you're looking for a decent serial killer mystery this is worth looking into.

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.