Worth: $15.00
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Cast:
Gingle Wang, Tseng Chin-hua
Intro:
Replete with CGI demons, gore and hellish monsters, this is a historical-horror movie genre fans will be entertained by.
The “White Terror” period was a dark moment in Taiwan’s history, where tens of thousands of Taiwanese civilians suspected or accused of being anti-government, were sought-out, arrested and killed.
Adapted from the popular supernatural video game of the same (which is set in 1962 during this bleak period), Detention stars Gingle Wang as Fang and Tseng Chin-hua as Wei, high school students who believe in freedom in a country under martial law, where freedom of speech is banned.
Part of a secret high school book club which studies banned books, one day Fang turns up to her school to find the halls empty, her tutor missing, a massive storm looming and not a person around. As the students search their deserted school, strange happenings, dead bodies and ghost-figures begin to appear.
So begins this Taiwanese high-school-set horror, the debut feature film directed by John Hsu.
Like the game on which it is based, Detention combines the historical evils of this era with CGI monsters, mythological elements, demons and villains, switching between fantasy and reality.
Comprised of multiple chapters and parts, Detention jumps back and forth between the savage horrors committed by the repressive Kuomintang military (KMT) and the physically monstrous creatures and devils roaming the hallways of the fictional Greenwood High School.
As the movie progresses, the flashbacks of brutal and torturous abductions start to blur with the game-ified, gory, fantastical monsters devouring educators, pupils and civilians, as bit by bit, the answers to what happened to the students’ peers and teachers become slowly apparent.
Shifting away from its game origins into historical horror, Detention attempts to unpack the true reality of the evils inflicted over decades by a frightening regime – one that left thousands missing or worse.
Scenes of torture are not shied away from; the movie depicts these happenings without hesitance.
This is one of the first large-scale movies to address the White Terror Period. Replete with CGI demons, gore and hellish monsters, this is a historical-horror movie genre fans will be entertained by.
