Movie Title: 鬼域 (Re-Cycle)
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/10)
Year: 2006
Re-cycle official site: http://www.re-cyclethemovie.com/
If I could write a short summary before anything, the summary would contain 6 words. “It is not a ghost story”. Okay there you go the spoiler intro (well not that the movie is bad).
The Chinese word “ghost” in the title got me thinking it was a ghost story. I keep thinking it would be scary and all. But well, I would say I am kind of amazed with the moral of the movie.
Ting Yin (Angelica Lee Sin Je) is a novel writer. With the right combination of being lovely and intelligent. She just has it all. Her first novel sell like hot cakes when she writes a beautiful love novel. Which actually writes a lot about her previous love relationship. The media and readers got so connected to novel. To ride on her success, she decided to write a totally new genre. She decided to write about Ghost Land. Yup… of all the genre.. horror! So yes, we are going to Ghost land for a ride.
Right after she decides to write about Ghost Land, many weird scenarios started to come up. She started to scribble different different stories. Many rejected stories were crumpled and thrown away. She starts to notice weird things happening like seeing strands of very long hair in her house, weird voice coming from the telephone machine and not to mention overflowing waters from the bathroom and shadows coming from here and there.
Unaware about the truth that the things that happen to her was exactly what she scribble on the papers. One night, after meeting his ex-boyfriend. She was walking home and she was almost carried away by this strong wind. She quickly return home and continues her story. She then notices the movements from the recycle bin. She picks up the piece of moving paper and uncrumple it only to find out what has been happening to her for the past few days were exactly what she wrote on the piece of paper. She then runs out of the house trying to find out what is going on.
As she steps out of her apartment, weird things starts to happen. She reached a weird place where dead bodies fly down. There she saw a woman similar to the fictional character she wrote for the book. A tall, slender, long-haired women is chasing after her and she running deeper in to the unknown land.
There she came to talk to this old man (Lau Siu Ming) where she finally knows a little bit about where she is at now. It’s a place where things we discarded, throw away or forgotten go. Right… the interesting part comes when Ting Yin will have to run when everything in that dimension starts to break apart. If she stays in, she will be gone forever.
From the Playground of the Damned, she jumps in to this new dimension called the Forest of Death. Where loads of dead people were seen hanging on the tree. Ting Yin nearly got killed by the zombies if it weren’t for this little girl who saved her riding on this gigantic wooden horse.
She brought her to this Toy Ruin dimension and told Ting Yin more about the Ghost Land. She told her everything that she has abandon or forget, she can find it back there. From there they venture more deeply in to the place as Ting Yin needs to get through a lot of places only to get to The Transit (a place where she can return to reality).
The little girl helped Ting Yin to get to the destination. They been through a lot of bad and good stuff. After going through thick and thin, Ting Yin was being told of the cruel truth. The little girl she wanted to bring with her back to the real world is actually the baby she has aborted.
The ending was rather scary and stunning and many does not understand what it means. Right… Ting yin wakes up in bed gasping for air. She then walks out to notice another her talking on the phone. I think it was brilliant how she was put to a position where she is too in to writing about the story that she forgets her own self which she ended up in the Ghost Land. Another way of looking at it, she is so attached to the character and she seems to make herself as the character in the novel where she created her own fictional character in the Ghost Land.
Well, I just think it is a great story where the Pang brother idea came from just looking at the Recycle Bin icon on the desktop. They actually wonder where the stuffs in the recycle bin goes when we click delete. I think it was totally meaningful but the fact that the execution was kind of bad. Not to mention the 3D were sorta fake and the actors and actress were sorta wooden. Not to even mention the obvious lipsync (I hope I get the spelling right) problem.
I think it would be a great movie if they could carry in a bigger production and better casts and well better 3D.