Have you watched "The Curse"? It can be said that this is the most awesome horror movie in Asia this year. Everyone in our company has watched it. Of course, some netizens said that if they watch a pirated version of "The Curse", they will also be cursed by the "Big Black Buddha

Have you watched "The Curse"?

It can be said that this is the most awesome horror movie in Asia this year. Everyone in our company has watched it.

1 After 10 minutes, Teacher Hu felt that these four words were the most appropriate way to sum up this movie.

is good, but the failure is

PART 01

. I won’t explain the plot here, because basically everyone has obtained the resources in different ways.

Of course, some netizens said that if you watch a pirated version of "The Curse", you will also be cursed by the "Big Black Buddha Mother" in the movie, which shows how serious the side effects this movie has brought.

In Taiwan Province at that time, the movie poster of "Curse" and the religious lines in the movie "Fire Buddha repairs one, the heart sashays" were too brainwashing.

After watching "The Curse", many Taiwanese viewers organized groups to go to the temple to "shock" the next day.

At that time, I just thought that this movie was too scary. Many viewers in the theater must have been frightened. However, after watching "The Curse", Tao could understand why these viewers organized a group to go to the temple to ask the master to scare him.

But actually, this movie is too unlucky.

My intuitive feeling is that my heart is being scraped up and down with a dull knife, causing severe pain.

At the beginning of the movie, from the train traveling in both directions to the Ferris wheel, to the heroine's words "Do you believe in blessings" when turning on the DV, the director

constantly gives psychological hints to the audience. The purpose is very simple, which is to immerse the audience. Enter the movie like this and uncover the secrets and curse of the "Big Black Buddha Mother" with the heroine (accept the curse).

Six years ago, the heroine and two new media professionals formed a "Death Special Agent Team" in order to increase their traffic and went to a village called Chenjiazhuang to shoot a VLOG about a supernatural village.

Chenjiazhuang in the real world is located in the "Lichen Villa" in Hsinchu County, Taiwan

A group of people went to Chenjiazhuang to shoot a video. They did not listen to the advice of the people in the village and went crazy to commit suicide.

secretly photographed local people worshiping at the ancestral hall.

Engraving "Visit Here" + Dick on other people's ancestral halls.

Finally, he broke into the forbidden area and kicked open the clan forbidden area of ​​the local people.

This reminds me of Brother Hu, the ruthless king of Northeast China.

Digging graves, sleeping in tombs

Holding the photos of the deceased in the temple and dancing to the disco

Overall, "The Curse" follows the old routine of horror movies. The main plot is that the protagonist commits suicide and brings bad luck, and everyone around him will be cursed. to death. The subplot of

is about a mother who wants to cut off the curse of the "Big Black Buddha Mother" on her daughter Duoduo.

In addition to the main and secondary plots, there is also a hidden thread of "fighting between gods and demons" buried in the entire movie.

When the heroine and her daughter Duo Duo met Buddha Mother for the first time at home, the nurse aunt at Duo Duo's welfare home asked for a magic charm, saying it could keep them safe. As a result, the nurse aunt directly put the red-hot glass in her mouth. Because the little gods cannot defeat the Mother Buddha.

The second time, the heroine took her daughter Duoduo and her male caregiver to the Zhengshen Temple to ask for help. On the way, she kept encountering " ghosts hitting the wall " (warnings) from the Buddha's mother, and the heroine's psychotherapist was also hung up. street lights.

The last time, the heroine was distressed that her daughter would not eat or drink for seven days, so she committed suicide by feeding her daughter canned pineapples . When she returned to the temple again, the statues turned around, indicating that the righteous god was powerless. The Great Black Buddha Mother Won.

PART 02

To be honest, when watching "The Curse", the first 40 minutes of preparation were too lengthy, and Tao even wanted to abandon the drama.

Until the BOSS "Big Black Buddha Mother" in the whole movie started to come online, Tao was brought back immediately.

Taiwanese director Ke Mengrong, who was born in the 1980s, has indeed done a lot of research on "Chinese horror". The horrors we can see in this movie are all based on the Chinese people's awe of gods, Buddhas and ghosts.

Mantra The Great Black Buddha Mother

The mantra spoken by believers in the movie "Fire Buddha Xiuyi, Heart Sa Mo" is actually a kind of sustenance that people place on "gods", hoping that they can be blessed by gods.

In the movie, the "Big Black Buddha Mother" has been worshiped by the Chenjiazhuang people who believe in cults for generations. The setting in the film is that it traveled from Southeast Asia through Yunnan and ended up in Taiwan.

The "Big Black Buddha Mother" does not exist in reality, but Taiwanese folklore experts have also conducted corresponding research programs and specifically given the source of the image of the "Big Black Buddha Mother" in the movie.

Big Black Buddha Mother = Taiwan’s local Stone Mother + Snow Mountain Goddess in Hinduism ( Shiva ’s wife).

In addition to the fusion creation on the background of the "Big Black Buddha Mother", the Buddha Mother's seal gesture actually has a certain explanation. The seal of the Buddha Mother in the movie was originally the "Bafangtian" seal in the esoteric religion. The Bafangtian mudra represents the absorption of merit.

It’s just that the handprints of the Buddha created by the director team are reverse seals. The director just wants to tell the audience that the Buddha sealed in the forbidden area of ​​Chenjiazhuang is an evil god, and the Buddha’s handprints are used to spread curses and bad luck.

There will definitely be viewers here who are curious about what the relationship between the heroine, the Big Black Buddha Mother, and Chen Jiazhuang is like.

According to director Ke Mengrong's interviews and movies, there is such a heretical sect that moved from Yunnan to southern Fujian , and finally took root in Chenjiazhuang.

At the beginning, the ancestors of Chenjiazhuang were indeed worshiping the Big Black Buddha. Considering that Fujian and Taiwan are polytheistic beliefs, the people of Chenjiazhuang were very respectful to the Buddha.

But why is the statue of the Mother Buddha placed in the basement?

This is because the descendants of Chenjiazhuang discovered that the evil power of the Big Black Buddha Mother had reached an uncontrollable level, so the Chenjiazhuang people sealed the statue in the cellar. The heroine

began to be affected by the curse of the "Big Black Buddha Mother" after the death of her companion 6 years ago. She kept fighting against Mother Buddha, and as a result, her daughter was also chosen by Mother Buddha. She chose to spread the curse to spread the curse on her daughter.

In the second half of the movie, the heroine’s behavior in the cellar actually left many viewers confused. For example, after the heroine entered the cellar, she started smashing the mirror crazily—six years ago, the heroine’s two companions did this when they entered the cellar. These mirrors are gone. Why does

have so many mirrors? The director

explained in the interview that these mirrors are actually magic circles set up by the people of Chenjiazhuang to seal the Buddha Mother. The mirrors are constantly reflecting in the tunnel so that the Buddha Mother cannot find the exit in the tunnel.

The heroine keeps smashing the mirror in order to destroy the magic circle and release all the evil power of the Buddha Mother.

The movie "The Curse" is a horror film with a relatively conventional structure. There are some fixed jumpscared, and the animations are not shown. It is indeed easy to make people feel uncomfortable.

The entire movie can indeed be regarded as a high-quality Chinese horror film, whether it is from the brainwashing "Fire Buddha Shuichi" sound effects, the exquisite "Big Black Buddha Mother" props, and the "blessings" throughout the film. piece.

PART 03

Of course, this rare Chinese-language horror film in recent years still has its flaws. The reason why some netizens on a certain page of

gave low scores is because I watched a movie, why would I still be cursed by you? Too unlucky.

Because at the end of the movie, the heroine and the evil god were clever and thought that they would be safe by wearing a blindfold and taking off the Buddha Mother's headband, and they spread the curse to us to reduce the impact of the curse on their daughter.

The true appearance of the Big Black Buddha Mother makes people uncomfortable. Director Ke Mengrong explained in the interview that the design was inspired by the amethyst stone with energy accumulation.

The original picture is too scary, so let’s use amethyst instead

So when we saw the end, we found that this curse is quite childish like "forward to five groups to keep safe".

The curse letter

can only say: "Director, you are so bad. Come to Chenjiazhuang and I will pull off your headgear and that of the Buddha Mother."

The biggest problem with "Curse" has nothing to do with the setting of the plot. The audience was There's really no need to get scared and give a low score.

The biggest flaw of this movie is that the "crossing shots" are very serious.

Director Meng Rong wants to make the audience feel the horror atmosphere in this movie through the form of "mock documentary" and "folklore horror".

But the reality is that every time the atmosphere brings the audience to a high point, the camera switch immediately gives you a basin of cold water.

started out as first-angle , and then switched to the third-person angle

. There are too many examples of this kind of lens switching, so I won’t list them. It really creates a sense of fragmentation in watching movies.

At the beginning of the movie "The Curse", the perspective of the heroine's hand-held camera allows the audience to understand what is happening from a first-person perspective. In

movies, handheld cameras are also used to promote the plot. From the heroine's camera, we saw that the heroine and her daughter Duoduo were cursed by the "Big Black Buddha Mother" at home.

The second-person perspective is the feedback from other characters in the movie. The heroine’s members of the supernatural team, her daughter, the teacher at the orphanage, and the residents of Chenjiazhuang who worship evil gods are all included in the second-person perspective.

The third-person perspective is the director's perspective outside of the movie. The downfall of "The Curse" is that when the heroine's hand-held shooting equipment is filming supernatural events, the camera will always cut to the director's perspective. In fact, the director wants to use this type of lens to show the emotions expressed by the characters and environment in the movie, which is the language of the lens.

It is because of this that the whole film looks intermittent. The emotions in the audience's throats will be suddenly pulled away, and this sense of fragmentation arises.

Traditional movies generally use fresh stories to stimulate the audience and promote the plot. mockumentary usually requires the audience to enter the movie with emotions to continuously discover and explore the story, just like the heroine and her companions enter the forbidden area of ​​​​Chenjiazhuang. The atmosphere of that period is the same as playing the village in "Resident Evil".

However, there are limitations to pseudo-documentaries. For example, pseudo-documentaries cannot guide emotions and express emotions without a third-person perspective. For example, when the heroine sees her daughter being cursed by the Buddha Mother, the camera switches to the third-person perspective so that we can see The heroine feels guilty towards her daughter.

Another thing is that when watching the whole movie, you need to use your brain to switch the timeline. The story timeline of "The Curse" is obviously a "non-linear narrative" of flashbacks and forward narration.

One moment 6 years ago, another moment 6 years later, the audience needs to spend time to puzzle out the plot. This is also the purpose of director's editing. It requires the audience to remember and think about the plot of the movie after watching it. The director

wanted to use movie-making techniques to make a pseudo-documentary, and he wanted to take the best of both worlds. He thought it was the icing on the cake, but in fact it was superfluous, causing the audience to often get upset while watching it.

So, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

If you compare "Curse", you will find that "Psychic " co-produced by South Korea and Thailand at the beginning of the year has a good preparation in the first half, but the zombie mode that begins in the second half is simply messed up by the director, and the zombies rush towards you. Come on, the photographer kept still and took pictures.

Over the years, horror film directors have been trying their best to scare the audience. Mock documentaries can indeed allow the audience to break through the physical limitations of the screen and enter the plot.

For example, "Zhongxie" in the Mainland.

Japan's " supernatural curse ".

Canada's " cemetery meets ".

The Japanese version of the poster is indeed ruthless

"The Curse", a rare horror film in recent years, is indeed good, but the director was very ambitious and mishandled some shooting techniques, which had the opposite effect.

Therefore, this is obviously a "work in which ambition exceeds ability."

At the end of writing, the director also left a hole. Did the little heroine Duoduo survive?

The film actually predicts the ending at the beginning. If you think Duoduo is dead, then she is dead. If you think she is alive, then she is alive.

Of course, the director will make the second part of "Curse" this year, which will unfold the follow-up story of the Black Buddha Mother from the perspective of the heroine's daughter Duoduo, and it will be released within the next three years.

Fire Buddha cultivates one, the heart is silent

Do you believe in blessings?