"A truly terrifying horror experience" is the quote on the front of the DVD, attributed to Bizarre magazine, which is a bizarre indeed comment, for this film is not a horror.
A Western couple living in Indochina lost their son six-months ago in the 2004 Tsunami and the wife believes she sees the lost son in a video about a village in Burma full of orphans. Somehow she convinces her husband to cough up lots of cash to some Triads to get them into Burma to seek out the boy.
Then there's lots of travelling, some very nice shots of the Indochina landscape, plenty of hysterics and tantrums from the wife, the most passionless sex scene ever, and finally something interesting appears to be about to happen but in fact turns out to be rather vague. Then it ends.
I was, needless to say, somewhat disappointed.
It's not a terrible film. The acting is certainly fine and the general set-up quite original and intriguing. But the characters are rather shallow, the storyline vague, and the ending a 'Huh?...Meh!' sort of moment. The set-up really needs a great big dollop of suspension of disbelief too. The couple think their son is in a Burmese village because they see a boy (in a distant shot, from behind) wearing a Manchester United top like the one their son was wearing when he vanished. Aren't there probably ten-million kids in world with such tops? I can get that the mother - half mad with grief - might go along, but surely her husband would have made a bit more of an effort to stop her from handing over their savings to some dodgy gangsters to go on this insane wild goose chase.
The worst thing is the marketing. If it was labelled a drama then I wouldn't have bothered with it. But instead it's labelled a horror meaning horror-fans like me get suckered into buying it and finding that there's nothing about this film that's from the horror genre except for the old horror cliché that the leading lady is a hysterical nut case.
If you like drama films whereby characters indulge in power struggles by sulking and throwing tantrums, you'll probably think this is okay, but the horror fans it cunningly reigns in with it's packaging will find they've wasted 93 minutes of their lives.
A Western couple living in Indochina lost their son six-months ago in the 2004 Tsunami and the wife believes she sees the lost son in a video about a village in Burma full of orphans. Somehow she convinces her husband to cough up lots of cash to some Triads to get them into Burma to seek out the boy.
Then there's lots of travelling, some very nice shots of the Indochina landscape, plenty of hysterics and tantrums from the wife, the most passionless sex scene ever, and finally something interesting appears to be about to happen but in fact turns out to be rather vague. Then it ends.
I was, needless to say, somewhat disappointed.
It's not a terrible film. The acting is certainly fine and the general set-up quite original and intriguing. But the characters are rather shallow, the storyline vague, and the ending a 'Huh?...Meh!' sort of moment. The set-up really needs a great big dollop of suspension of disbelief too. The couple think their son is in a Burmese village because they see a boy (in a distant shot, from behind) wearing a Manchester United top like the one their son was wearing when he vanished. Aren't there probably ten-million kids in world with such tops? I can get that the mother - half mad with grief - might go along, but surely her husband would have made a bit more of an effort to stop her from handing over their savings to some dodgy gangsters to go on this insane wild goose chase.
The worst thing is the marketing. If it was labelled a drama then I wouldn't have bothered with it. But instead it's labelled a horror meaning horror-fans like me get suckered into buying it and finding that there's nothing about this film that's from the horror genre except for the old horror cliché that the leading lady is a hysterical nut case.
If you like drama films whereby characters indulge in power struggles by sulking and throwing tantrums, you'll probably think this is okay, but the horror fans it cunningly reigns in with it's packaging will find they've wasted 93 minutes of their lives.