DEAD TALENTS SOCIETY (鬼才之道) (2024)

Genre: Horror/Comedy
Director: John Hsu
Cast: Chen Bo-Lin, Sandrine Pinna, Gingle Wang, Eleven Yao, Bai Bail, Soso Tseng, Milia Luo
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Rating: NC16 (Some Disturbing Scenes and Coarse Language)
Released By: Sony Pictures
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 29 August 2024

Synopsis: Plenty of time to shine when you're dead. When one is born as a person, one is bestowed hope since birth. Yet as one ages, one gradually discovers that everything means jack squat—until the moment of death, which marks the beginning of one’s life as a ghost. Being a person is hard enough, but it turns out being a ghost is not easy, either. NEWBIE, as a newbie ghost, realizes to her horror that she has just 28 days until her spirit will dissipate from the world. MAKOTO, a demon agent who appears to be a scammer, approaches the Newbie with a proposition for her to join has-been demon star CATHERINE in reconstructing the legendary horror story of the Wang Lai Hotel. The Newbie learns that ghosts in the Netherworld are as occupied with work as the living: without the talent of terrorizing people, ghosts cannot continue existing in the world—life does not end after death. “But I don’t want to be forgotten!” thus becomes ghosts’ final conviction, and these ghosts about to be forgotten by the living must, amidst the challenges, find a way to “horrible” fame by scaring people. As long as you have talent in terrorization, you will be seen!

Movie Review:

Director John Hsu calls Dead Talents Society a satire on the horror genre and also a coming-of-age story. Well, he is right on both accounts. Releasing towards the end of the annual Hungry Ghost Festival, Hsu’s second full-length feature after Detention is a snazzy watch from start to end. For those viewers who avoid horrors, this is downright more of a comedy and a really meaningful one so feel free to let your hair down and give it a go.

If you think death is the answer to all your worldly worries then you are dead wrong. In Hsu’s world, the afterlife is where all the worries/excitement begins.

In order to keep your existence in the afterlife, every ghosts need to apply for a professional haunting license. Your job is to compete to be the scariest ghost or risk being disintegrate in 30 days. A rookie ghost (Gingle Wang) is taken in by a band of misfits ghouls led by has-been urban-legend queen, Catherine (Sandrinne Pinna) and has-been pop singer turned manager, Makoto (Chen Bo-lin).

Their job is to turn the rookie into a scary ghost and their next formidable task is to compete with Catherine’s ex-protege turned rival, Jessica (Eleven Yao) in a contest to prove to three paranormal investigators that there are indeed ghosts in a dilapidated onsen hotel.

Hsu has successfully pulled off a world-building move with Dead Talents Society. The movie pokes fun at how the afterlife is no different than our world. There’s a Golden Ghost Awards, a popular talkshow where guests talk and smear each other and a hilarious dig at Vogue magazine. Even the Taiwanese horror hit, The Tag-Along is not spared. Basically you need to work hard and stay relevant as a ghost to keep the scares up. Please do not stick to your routine scaring tactics liked Catherine.

The pacing and humour goes hand in hand. There’s hardly a dull moment for the entire run. Interestingly, there’s a laugh-out-loud scene where our group of misfits tried to scare the wits out of a young couple with the rookie making a gruesome entrance. The humour on the whole is part Stephen-Chowesque, part Tim Burtonesque and it certainly is a big treat to contemporary audiences who sort of misses out on the comedy essence from these two filmmakers in their heydays.

The entire cast is terrific as well. Gingle Wang is the perfect sad sack (maybe she can be the live-action version of Sadness), a young lady who tried hard to live up to this father’s wishes. Sandrinne Pinna for sure shines as the veteran ghost. And did we mentioned she is absolutely gorgeous? Chen Bo-lin is the “soul” of Dead Talents Society, charismatic, witty and a hoot whenever he appears onscreen. Despite being foremost a comedy, there’s an underlying touching element to all the various lead characters who each has his or her own sobbing story to tell before they passed.

Dead Talents Society doesn’t necessarily scream to be an award-winning title but it sure is by far the most funny, creatively written comedy of the year.

Movie Rating:

(An imaginative funny hor-medy not to be missed!)

Review by Linus Tee