ReviewBinding Souls film review: awful Hong Kong haunted house mystery
- A story that’s illogical from the get-go, a budget that seemingly stretched to only two ghosts, characters that appear to be mere plot devices – this is painful
- Set in a former school that was a wartime Japanese death chamber, there should be ample scope for scares; yet even diehard horror fans will find film a chore
1/5 stars
Nothing makes sense in this half-hearted attempt at a haunted house mystery. The second film of director Chan Pang-chun – whose OK debut, the exorcism horror Daughter (2015), now looks quite a gem by comparison – Binding Souls is that rare movie which fails to convince in every aspect, from its characters’ behaviour to its shockingly sparse assembly of ghosts.
The premise of Binding Souls is a visit by five young adults to a long-abandoned high school with a horrific past, and this is where the problems start. It is supposed to have been a death chamber for the Japanese army during World War II where, we’re told, countless war prisoners and sex slaves met their grisly end. Curiously, the production budget seemingly only stretched to showing us two ghosts from its past.
Leading the visit is alumnus Fung (Tsao Yu-ning), who is accompanied by four friends – horndog Shing Li (Carlos Chan Ka-lok), smart-ass Mei Kei (Angie Shum Yat-ka), scaredy-cat Hiu Yu (Keeva Mak Ka-yu), and the utterly unmemorable Lai (Anika Sheng) – whose purpose in staying there remains unclear. It smacks of lazy scripting that they always seem to immediately forget about their encounters with the ghosts.
Equally befuddling is the presence of a principal (Yuen Cheung-yan) and a canteen manager (Kara Wai Ying-hung) – the school has supposedly been closed for seven years, albeit it hosts a “museum” room of wartime atrocities. Add to that the abrupt appearance of an “intern teacher” (Esther Huang Ching-i); these characters feel like jarring plot devices from the get-go.