Chongkwai(Ray MacDonald) purchases a "cursed" book which depicts various methods of seeing and encountering ghosts from the spiritual world. He invites a group of friends from Hong Kong to his home in Thailand and they decide to see if the book can actually perform the tasks it represents. In doing so, one of the group, Kofei(Yu Gu)comes up missing during their forest hide-n-seek game using a cat thanks in part to a ghost who "masks" him from them. Haunted by his disappearance, upon returning to Hong Kong, May(Kate Yeung) & Teddy(Bo-lin Chen)begin experiencing ghostly apparitions popping up throughout the city with a grief-stricken April(Isabelle Leong)making a drastic decision in order to find Kofei, for whom she believes is dead. May & Teddy will accept a dangerous mission, entering the spirit world as if dead(..another method in the book is sleeping while dressed in burial clothes)to find Kofei..and April who has become missing as well.
The Pang Bros take the franchise into a completely different direction, sacrificing some genuine scares, adopting an almost entirely light-hearted approach to those scary spirits who walk amongst the living. Even the title opening credits are played out in a colorfully jokey manner. But, when the gang play around with the spiritual world, the tone shifts somewhat, but the Pang Brothers always implement some tongue-in-cheek gag that removes the sheer horror of the situation. An example being when Teddy is temporarily taken over by a spirit who has him break-dancing in a contest with a couple of clowns. It's hard to really be scared of an umbrella floating in the air, although May certainly is terrified. Who would've ever thought a basketball could be used as a scare device? And, most of the book's methods of contacting the spirit world are rather silly such as tapping on bowls at Midnight with chopsticks awaiting hungry spirits, or looking between your legs for a spirit. I did love this one developed sub-plot regarding a dead girl who had no idea she was deceased, discovering this only after finding her corpse video-recorded at a crime scene thanks to Teddy's morbid voyeurism;she even tries to stop the camcorder with her hand going through the object. The special effects are impressive. I thought the spirits were creepy enough when they expose themselves. I found the twist at the end regarding May and Teddy's fate rather amusing and it fits in with the overall mood of this film. If you are looking for an Asian terror tale, look elsewhere, because The Bros Pang just weren't in the mood this time around. I think the comedic tone will repel some viewers because the cover of the DVD I rented promised something terrifying. But, to be honest, the first two films were full of such despair and angst, it was refreshing to see the third film a bit more cheerful and playful.
The Pang Bros take the franchise into a completely different direction, sacrificing some genuine scares, adopting an almost entirely light-hearted approach to those scary spirits who walk amongst the living. Even the title opening credits are played out in a colorfully jokey manner. But, when the gang play around with the spiritual world, the tone shifts somewhat, but the Pang Brothers always implement some tongue-in-cheek gag that removes the sheer horror of the situation. An example being when Teddy is temporarily taken over by a spirit who has him break-dancing in a contest with a couple of clowns. It's hard to really be scared of an umbrella floating in the air, although May certainly is terrified. Who would've ever thought a basketball could be used as a scare device? And, most of the book's methods of contacting the spirit world are rather silly such as tapping on bowls at Midnight with chopsticks awaiting hungry spirits, or looking between your legs for a spirit. I did love this one developed sub-plot regarding a dead girl who had no idea she was deceased, discovering this only after finding her corpse video-recorded at a crime scene thanks to Teddy's morbid voyeurism;she even tries to stop the camcorder with her hand going through the object. The special effects are impressive. I thought the spirits were creepy enough when they expose themselves. I found the twist at the end regarding May and Teddy's fate rather amusing and it fits in with the overall mood of this film. If you are looking for an Asian terror tale, look elsewhere, because The Bros Pang just weren't in the mood this time around. I think the comedic tone will repel some viewers because the cover of the DVD I rented promised something terrifying. But, to be honest, the first two films were full of such despair and angst, it was refreshing to see the third film a bit more cheerful and playful.