Curse of the Deserted (2010)
Young writer Guo (Shawn Yue) wrote about a titular curse in his book, “The Deserted Village”. It began 500 years ago in the Ming Dynasty, when one of the villagers died of terminal illness. The widow Yanzi vowed to stay with her husband forever but when the man suddenly returned to life. The horrified neighbours believed that he was a monster. They burned him to death and torched his mansion. The devastated Yanzi upheld her vow and threw herself into the fire. Since then, the village was cursed and the mansion subsequent inhabitant dies mysteriously. Some say only couples who share true love can survive in that village. Those who are unfaithful will come to their demise. To the world, the book was pure fiction. Only Guo and his ex-girlfriend Zhi (Kitty Zhang) had lived through the horror to know its existence. When four college students decided to explore the village themselves, the trip led them to an ancient well in Yanzi’s mansion, where the curse was unleashed once again.
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Reviews
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
This movie is Chinese. I viewed it with subtitles. Unless you speak the language you will need a good jumpstart if you decide to see it (not to worry, I never spoil). So here it is: Guy betrays his girlfriend's trust by writing about some notorious village mansion that they discovered earlier on in their relationship when they were still a couple (he had promised it would be their secret). As he's leaving a school building one day, he is recognized and confronted by some students wanting to know if the legend of the village mansion is true, and it's location. He tells them he made up the story; that the village and mansion doesn't exist. They don't believe him and decide to investigate on their own. Ghost is not happy and starts e-mailing the guy and calling him on his cell.Years ago in some village mansion, according to the story or the legend, a young woman named Rouge, out of love and devotion, stayed with her husband 7 days and 6 nights after he took ill and died. Subsequently the husband comes back to life. Rouge was so happy she told the villagers. The villagers said he must be a ghost and burned him to death. Heartbroken, Rouge then burned herself to death. The mansion has been haunted ever since. There you have it. A nice framework for a non-Chinese speaking audience. I would describe this movie as a ghost-mystery-love story. One that is unfortunately not scary at all and is best viewed just as a mystery-love story. So if you want to be scared or horrified you're probably better off going through your financial papers and looking at some bill you owe. Love, Boloxxxi.