When I sat down to watch this 2023 Vietnamese movie titled "Vong Nhi" (aka "The Unborn Soul"), I thought I was in for a horror story. However, director Hoang Tuan Cuong delivered something that was more of a drama laced with some light horror elements.
The storyline in "Vong Nhi" was adequately written and proved to be entertaining enough for what it was. However, the narrative was rather slowly paced, and with a play time of 118 minutes, the movie felt long, very, very long. Some more roundhanded editing would have done wonders for the final end result of the movie.
I wasn't faniliar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but the actresses and actors actually put on good enough performances and brought the movie to life - pardon the pun - on the screen in a good way. But the movie's slow narrative was sort of working against them.
Visually then "Vong Nhi" is okay. It is not a movie that relies heavily on special effects, and doesn't need an abundance of special effects to bring its story to the screen. Most of the few effects used were fair enough, aside from the rather horribly rendered CGI fetus that crawled around on the screen.
"Vong Nhi" is not a traditional horror movie, so don't sit down to watch it with such intentions, as I did, because it will be a bit of a disappointment. While I managed to sit through all 118 minutes, then I have to say that this is not a movie that warrants a second viewing, nor does it actually have enough contents to do so anyway.
Ultimately, a watchable movie, but not a memorable or outstanding viewing experience. And director Hoang Tuan Cuong is somewhat preachy with the storyline about abortions.
My rating of "Vong Nhi" lands on a five out of ten stars.
