Naraka 19 is a movie that based on a popular internet novel created by Choi Tsun, it’s enormously popular among young readers, a dark tale about a curse mobile phone game called Naraka 19 or the 19th gate of hell. The novel itself has broken sales records with over 2.000.000 copies sold in China alone over the last two years, and the book has now been translated into many languages and is being distributed worldwide. This big screen adaptation is released last September in Asia, but in a very short time now the movie already being bundles on home cinema version or DVD to collect. The product is expected to release on October 26, 2007. (Order your copy now!)
The story begin when a girl named Rain (Gillian Chung), checks into her college dorm room along with pals, Mandy (Bonnie Xin), Violet (Vincy) and Eva (Maggie Li). What they didn’t know about the place is the history of the room 10 years prior, a student named Gao Yuan was committed suicide in there, and the resulting psychic scars run deep. The nightmare starting when Rain notices that Eva is always sending text message late at night, she seems to be addicted to her cell phone. One day, Rain receives a text message from her and the contents are “Help me” message. What they found later is Eva dead in a gruesome manner. However, Eva’s phone keeps receiving the mysterious messages and Rain discovers that one of them says “Game Over”. The mystery between the message and Eva’s dead draws Rain to get another mysterious text message that inviting her to play this special game called “Naraka 19”, Rain start to realize what the nightmare really is as soon as she and her other friends decided to enter the game. The game made them travel to each level of hell in order to reach the fabled 19th gate of hell, it’s a dark and fantastic world that surrounded by demons and otherworldly creatures. They must face every obstacle before making it to the exit, and thus solving the level and earning them passage to the next level. What if they don’t pass the level, the consequence is going mad which draws them to do something severe, like killing themselves. Rain tries her best to reach the final stage that will take her to something far beyond what she expected before.The Film Reviews:
The Chinese believes that there are 18th gates of hell with each gate (or level as you descend) representing a certain form of torture for each specific wrong doings that an individual is guilty of. If you are a sex offender, you will be sent to the 5th level to be fried in oil. Or if you stirred up trouble by gossiping, be prepared to be sent to the 9th level to have your tongues ripped out. Naraka 19 is trying to offers an extra gate / level to the pre existing 18 gates that commonly known to most Chinese and what could be worse than the never ending inferno without any chance in reincarnation? Confusingly, Naraka 19 posses the question but forgotten to answer it or even shred some lights into it. Basically, Naraka 19 has it’s victims (or unwilling players) going through a series of level in a mobile phone game. Once the player reaches it’s final stage, the player would be granted one wish. The concept of using mobile phone to explore hell was a rather intriguing idea and the psychological combat that the players had to go through has it’s potential but instead of focusing on this two elements, the film chose to branch out to many characters and subplots which was confusing and alienating. The other notable part of Naraka 19 was it’s special effects which had it’s hits and misses. The impressive bit of the special effects was how it was used to paint the picturesque version of hell. It manages to capture the essence of evil that one would fear while visiting the underworld and in the safety zone of the theatre seats, it’s easy to gasp at the wondrously illustrated version of hell. But the disappointing bit was that there were far too few displays this hellish levels. The unimpressive bit of the special effects would it how it was used to invoke the sense of fear. Like a recent Hong Kong horror film, The Haunted School, this film also uses quick cuts or extreme zoom in/out and close up on characters in a weak attempt to create scary ambiance for this movie.
It’s either they never learn from the mistake that their peer just made recently or maybe this sort of fear tactic works in their region. Beside it’s un-scariness, the way that the movie told it’s story was in the same manner that the lead character (Rain) undergoes the process of game play and it was done in a ultra fast manner with plenty of skip options. Slow revelation here are not of an importance here and with each level of hell so easily cleared (or skipped), it’s hard for the audience to emote with Rain. Sadly, the process of the Rain going through the various difficult mobile game play was what this movie had going so far and yet it was done in fashion that it seems that the filmmaker wasn’t interested to place any emphasis on the main sell point of the movie. Instead, they chose to laden this movie with other character’s subplots that weren’t necessary to build the Rain’s supposedly tedious journey to the final stage and if it doesn’t help to build, it only served to distract and prolong the film in an unnecessary manner. With it’s synopsis stating that Naraka 19 in it’s novel form has quite a major following among the youngster, I found it amusing to see a youngster beside me, fidgeting restlessly during the movie. Perhaps Gillian Chung is not his (and my) cup of tea or perhaps this movie really messes up the potential it has but in the end, this movie only succeeded in intriguing me to find out more about the more commonly known 18th level of hell instead of 19th one in Naraka 19. (Reviewed by Richard Lim Jr which taken from www.moviexclusive.com)Product Details:
Product Title: Naraka 19 (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
Actors: Gillian Chung Yan-Tung, Shaun Tam Chun-Yin, Patrick Tam Yiu-Man, Bonnie Sin Sik-Lai (Bonnie Xin), Charlene Choi.
Directors: Carol Lai Miu Suet
Format: Widescreen 2.35:1 (Anamorphic), Color, NTSC
Language: Cantonese, Mandarin
Subtitle: English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese
Audio Specs: Digital Surround 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0
Region: Region 3 South East Asia (including Hong Kong, S. Korea and Taiwan)
Number of discs: 1
Country Made: China (Hong Kong)
Genre: Thriller
Distributor: Mei Ah Entertainment
Release Date: October 26, 2007 (Order your copy now!)
