電影評論《失眠》Film Review #1 The Sleep Curse (Hong Kong, 2017) a.k.a. ''Shi mian'' ''失眠''

電影評論 Film Review #1 The Sleep Curse (Hong Kong, 2017) a.k.a. ''Shi mian'' ''失眠''

This is the Evolution of Slasher Movie! Great!

                                                                     21 May 2017 | by 中西良太 Ryota Nakanishi (Japan) –

 Dir.Harman Yau is one of important genre filmmakers in Hong Kong. This film consists trilogy of Anthony Chau-Sang Wong's cult splatter/slasher films. Such as "Ebola Syndrome"(HK, 1996) and "The Untold Story" (HK, 1993).

 Contrary to other two cult bloody slashers, The Sleep Curse(HK, 2017) is not only historically meaningful, but also it is emotionally impressive to the certain extent.

This is actually not a kind of porno of violence. There are several points for this.

 1. The innocent translator for Japanese occupational force, Lam Sing is actually a good man who saves several comfort girls from the imperialists unfortunately gets cursed by a soothsayer's single- eyed daughter who misunderstands him. This curse involves generational tragedies that finally makes the protagonist Lam Sik-ka a mad at the end of the film.

 2. Two thirds of the film is about historical tragedies of the two traitors' families (Lam family and Chow Fook family) from the WW2 period to the 1990s. What we see are emotional responses to these karma effects to these cursed generations of the two families.

 3. The curse is more severe grudge against all generations of the targeted families. It is harsher than Japanese horror film The Grudge. This also embodies the concept of the film that the Evil must deserves the karma. If there is still nothing at the moment. It must have it later. And it is unavoidable.

In conclusion, you can not expect full range of porno of violence like the past. This is seriously full of emotional and historical responses to the tragedies. It is quite impressive even to Japanese viewers. This is actually marked the evolution of the Hong Kong and Asian horror films. Thank you all for making this well made horror genre film! 10 Stars!

香港日佔时期（1941 - 1945），曾在日本长大的林醒为了保护家人，在日本佔领军所建立的慰安所替日本人当翻译，因此被视为汉奸。
在慰安所里，林醒见到不少妇女被强姦，他虽不忍心，但却没勇气和能力拯救她们，内心充满负罪感。
45年后，林醒的儿子林惜家成为着名大学医学院教授，林惜家对父亲林醒患上失眠以后的事记忆犹新，但他始终不相信父亲的行径是因为受了诅咒。为了研究这种致死性家族失眠症，林惜家开始了恐怖实验……

Source:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6754750/mediaviewer/rm237513216
http://www.emp.hk/cs/production/all/the-sleep-curse