The Soul Reaper

On the eve of her marriage, a villager throws their community into a panic claiming to see a mysterious figure in their midst which sets off a chain of death around them, and when she realizes everything is intended to serve a dark magic ritual intended to revive a deadly spirit and must race to stop it.

There's quite a lot to like about the film. One of the biggest factors to enjoy is the rather fun starting setup that effectively explores small-town superstition and mysticism in such a rural community. Given an introduction about the nature of the villagers who have retreated to the mountains to build their home and be away from others living in lesser conditions with their own superstitions and customs, the means through which their way of life getting shattered creates a fine setup. The concurrent storylines within the village, from the mysterious sightings of ghosts in the village, the gruesome deaths taking place soon after, and the love triangle all offer up enough fun concurrent storylines to keep this moving along. The chaos and paranoia that emerges once the mysterious deaths are revealed to have a purpose helps to unleash a rather dark and sinister progression of the storyline hinted at involving curses and demonic spirits living in the area, all ending up making for a great starting point here. With this setup established, this turns into a fantastic series of supernatural-tinged encounters showing the deadly effects of their living condition.being stranded in the remote village and aware of the curses that focus on bringing about a series of supernatural incidents. The cold-open, presenting a view of the Crimson Sweat curse that affects those who try to leave, is a shockingly gruesome sequence capturing the painful condition in all of it's graphic splendor, and that it gets brought up again when the villagers try to leave following several unexplained and mysterious deaths is a huge standout with the extended sequence offering scores of bodily scaring or facial deformations that produce some grisly visuals hammers that home quite well. The resulting aftermath of the various bodies leading up to the realization that the fabled poem they knew as kids is the key to the whole affair. How everything gets spelled out, translating each of the verses into literal incidents and attacks which mirror the tragedies that befell each of the villagers, ties it all together incredibly well adding a solid degree of danger to the later sequences of the village going crazy with bloodlust trying to stop the curse. Featuring some genuinely chilling twists and shocking revelations that come about, it's got quite a lot to like and hold this one up the most. While there's a lot to like here, there are some drawbacks to this one. The main factor with this one is an overlong finale which tries to pack on several different storyline beats that aren't truly needed here. Going along with the revelations made, the battle against the guilty party, and then undoing their master plan is fine enough but even that takes way too much time featuring several big battles to finish out. On top of that, there's also the dealing with the later reveal involving the true figure behind the incidents in the village which features a big confrontation to play out and waste even more time trying to deal with featuring the action to figure that out. Also, there's the decidedly obvious use of CGI which shows up for the supernatural flames representing the magic attempted during the magic sequences which look quite cheap and silly, drawing you out of the sequence entirely. It happens several times on other unnecessary features including burning bodies or fire-dependent features which makes them stand out against the more realistic features elsewhere throughout here. These are the factors that hold it back the most.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.

One of the film's most significant drawbacks was the underwhelming character development. The protagonists felt like mere caricatures, devoid of any relatable qualities or genuine emotions. Their actions appeared arbitrary, making it impossible for me to invest in their struggles or triumphs. The lackluster plot, superficial characters, and misguided direction collectively contribute to a film that, in my opinion, falls short of the acclaim it has received. While acknowledging that tastes diverge, this movie, unfortunately, missed the mark for me, offering little more than a frustrating and unsatisfying cinematic experience. Don't ever support Vietnamese movies anymore, all of these suck.