Movie Review: The Second Coming/重生

Spring of 2014 has been a bit sparse in terms of new movies.

Local film understandably doesn’t want to compete with Hollywood’s slate of summer blockbusters.

But luckily there are still movies to watch.

I went to the Newport Cinema in Mong Kok to watch The Second Coming/重生, a new horror film from Herman Yau.

I often say that Herman Yau can work magic with a cast and He makes movies better than they should be.

I’m not sure exactly how he does it, but he often creates films that have a lot more going for them than you might think.

The Second Coming/重生 continues that tradition.

It’s certainly not an expensive-looking movie, but the camera work in the opening shows a kind of technical maturity that is obviously rare enough that I noticed it. It’s nice to see an assured, experienced filmmaker at work.

It’s also nice to see a movie by one of the very few people on earth who can get away with opening credits that make a sonogram seem like an ominous portrait of the devil.

The Second Coming/重生 tells the story of a family with some issues.

The conflict is centered around the teenage daughter, Lucy, played by Joey Leong.

She’s been acting strange lately, and starts acting even stranger.

Her parents, played by Maggie Shiu and Kenny Wong, worry about her, though their concern is often at two very different levels.

No family is perfect, and this family is no better.

There are some pretty shocking secrets in the family album.

Like I said, Herman Yau makes movies better than they ought to be, and that is certainly the case here.

The story, written by Ng Tin Chi, is both generic and occasionally illogical.

It’s generic because it hits all the requisite marks for horror movies that we’ve come to expect on this side of the world.

But that’s not a bad thing.  The audience I saw the film with loved seeing Siu Yam Yam as an exorcist fighting against an evil spirit.

I did too! Why do you think I watch these movies???

Even when the film is illogical, it’s still entertaining.

If you want to know where your daughter is in an emergency, don’t waste time asking the dog.

Some of the CGI in The Second Coming/重生 isn’t very good,  but there are two considerations I feel I should mention.

One, I doubt the budget was at the necessary level to pull off some of the intended visuals, and two, some of the visuals are things that you have to use CGI to do.

Besides, it is edited well enough and interspersed with non-digital footage so that you never have to see it for too long.

Put it this way: I can much more easily forgive the CGI in this movie than I can in a Hollywood movie with a budget that is exponentially higher.

I was very impressed with Maggie Shiu’s performance, both for her acting and her willingness to do things onscreen that I was totally unprepared to see.

The epilogue of the film was particularly effective for me because of her acting.

But it was the other half of her role that made the biggest impression.

The thing I took away from this movie is just how many times Maggie Shiu and Herman Yau shocked me.

One of the first scenes of the film had me wide-eyed and squirming in my seat.

And happened again in the next scene.

Throughout the movie, there were quite a few times that I found myself recoiling in honest horror at what I saw on the screen.

It didn’t seem cheap or exploitative, but these things were certainly horrific.

Speaking of being horrified, I’ll thank Herman Yau for making me feel like there is at least one movie that received funding from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council where it doesn’t seem like my tax dollars got unceremoniously wasted.

The Second Coming/重生 isn’t a great movie. But it’s not bad, and it is memorable. Really memorable.

Even without being Category III.

The thanks for that go to Herman Yau, who has made yet another film that you’re not likely to forget having seen.