Tales from the Dark 2 (2013) (DVD) (Hong Kong Version) DVD Region 3

Gordon Chan kicks off Tales from the Dark 2 with "Pillow", about Ching Yi (Fala Chen), who suffers a break-up with boyfriend Hong (Gordon Lam) that ends with him leaving their shared apartment. Days later, he's nowhere to be found and Ching Yi starts to suffer from insomnia. However, a scented pillow from a local dry good store restores Ching Yi's ability to snooze and soon after, Hong begins to visit her for regular makeup sex. Said visits, however, may be of a metaphysical nature. "Pillow" is a nifty update of classic Chinese ghost tales, except with a female protagonist and some slightly amped eroticism courtesy of Fala Chen's body double. Gordon Chan creates decent, though sometimes tediously inert atmosphere and Fala Chen is fetching as the depressed protagonist. Of particular note: the segment's resolution involves the dead sending text messages. Simon Yam's portion of Tales from the Dark 1 ended similarly, which begs the question: Are we looking at some weird new trope?

"Hide and Seek" comes courtesy of Lawrence Lau, who takes a bunch of unknown young actors and lets them loose in an abandoned school. The group intends to play games in the school after dark but run into the clearly disturbed caretaker Uncle Chan (Lai Hon-Chi) before white-faced child ghosts begin picking them off one-by-one. "Hide and Seek" offers little surprise and the kids can be annoying, and yet there's routine fun in seeing them frighten each other before getting snatched to the afterlife. The segment resembles a ghost story that you'd hear around a campfire at summer youth camp, and delivers its scares in a straightforward and unsurprising manner. Lawrence Lau eschews any postmodern commentary, delivering little more than a generic and serviceable diversion that's sometimes refreshing in its uncomplicated simplicity. "Hide and Seek" is far from the best horror short you'll see, but it does its job so it's hard to fault it.

Teddy Robin directs and stars in the closing piece, "Black Umbrella", about a curiously wise old man (Robin) who wanders Hong Kong with his black umbrella, doing minor good deeds and commenting on his place in the world. The people he encounters, including a would-be thief (Kelvin Kwan) and a beat-up prostitute (Aliza Mo), have differing reactions to his good deeds, and he occasionally hints that controlling his temper would be a good thing. Then he loses his temper AND IT ALL GOES TO HELL. For some people, anyway. "Black Umbrella" takes its cues from Chinese cultural lore and compensates for its occasional aimlessness with an intriguing premise, fine cinematography and also its ending, which puts an exclamation point on the segment and indeed the entire Tales from the Dark series. There's also minor satire in the form of Wan Yeung-Ming, who plays a parody of controversial local politician Paul Chan Mo-Po. Minor satire: always a plus.

The Tales From the Dark films arrived in Hong Kong cinemas with an overblown "quality" marketing push from Edko Films, with testimonials from actors and directors about how awesome or revolutionary their new film is. Those claims are, unsurprisingly, not validated by the final product. There's little here that hasn't been seen before, with some segments (Simon Yam's "Stolen Goods" and Lee Chi-Ngai's "A Word in the Palm") going for style or scripting over scares or substance. But the remaining four parts are decent to excellent, making this experiment in Hong Kong horror a solid success. They're no patch on the Three movies or even Herman Yau's uneven but occasionally sublime Troublesome Night films, but the Tales From the Dark films are well-produced and quite watchable exercises in horror. The simple fact that they don't make Hong Kong movies like this anymore gives them extra cred.

by Kozo - LoveHKFilm.com