(Review) Hungry Ghost Ritual
ZHONG HUA (Nick Cheung), who grew up in a Cantonese opera family, returns home to Malaysia after his business failed in China.
When his father (Lam Wai) is admitted to hospital after an argument with Zong’s rebellious young sister Jing (Cathryn Lee), Zong is forced to take over his father’s job as the troupe leader.
He finds it difficult in gaining the trust of the troupe aside from the prima donna, Xiu Yin (Annie Liu), who surprisingly decides to give him a chance and support him.
On the day of the troupe’s performance, which falls on the first day of the Hungry Ghost Festival, Zong begins to experience all sorts of incidents.
Feeling depressed, especially from the troupe’s resentment, and helpless as to what to do, he decides to set up a CCTV around the theatre to find out the cause of the incidents.
He soon discovers that some form of paranormal force is involved.
Personally, I enjoy a good scare from horror films with a decent storyline. The scary scenes in this film isn’t too bad. However, the movie fails badly in terms of storytelling and the scary scenes often do not flow along with the plot.
There are just too many unanswered questions. Even when the story ends with the ultimate revelation, many of the scenes and dialogues in the film still do not make sense. It’s just bad story-telling that makes it incomplete.
Hong Kong actors Cheung and Carrie Ng were amazing in their roles however. Cheung grasps the sense of helplessness very well, while Ng could act just with her feet!
I’m not kidding – just look out for the scenes where the camera follows the movements of her feet. I wish she had been given more screen time.
Malaysian actress Karena Teo also shines with her less than five minutes of screen time! Her sly smile in that one scene alone still lingers in my mind.
However, Taiwanese actress Liu’s bad grasp of the Cantonese dialect really annoys me as it makes her sound so bad.
And unlike Teo, local actress Cathryn Lee’s acting is so dull that I can easily forget that she is in the film.
Honestly, the film could work just fine without her character in it.
Despite its many faults, I would still recommend Hungry Ghost Ritual just for its scary scenes.