Silk

Silk (2006) Directed by Chao-Bin Su
Starring Chen Chang, Yosuke Eguchi, Karena Lam, Bo-lin Chen, Chun-Ning Chang, Barbie Hsu

Combining science-fiction and horror Chao-Bin Su offers an often intriguing but unfortunately imbalanced movie with Silk. The premise is so preposterous that by taking itself seriously the film becomes its own caricature, failing where something like Ghostbusters or even The Frighteners succeed. It’s a good effort in some respects and easy enough to watch with beer and pizza, but so frustrating you’ll be tempted to throw leftover crust at the screen.

An international team of scientists have assembled in Taiwan led by the perfectly coiffured Hashimoto (Yosuke Eguchi) and his cold-blooded reptilian assistant Su (Barbie Hsu) searching for ghosts. After their sleaze-ball token white guy winds up dead in an apartment they quarantine the building (by having the Taiwanese government, under pressure from the Japanese government, declare a radiation hazard) and erect a high-tech office. Inside a glassed encased room sits a little boy, his eyes too milky-white and his skin too pale to be alive.

It turns out Hashimoto has discovered a way to levitate, utilizing the energy of the dead by means of a scientific substance you can spray in your eyes or on the doorknob. The Japanese want millions of floating cubes to revolutionize their industry but unfortunately there’s a real lack of ghosts in the world so a lot is riding on this one little boy. All attempts to understand the ghost and why he exists have failed, forcing Hashimoto to call in Taiwanese supercop Tung (Chen Chang) who can read lips and has a photographic memory. This newcomer to the team is met with great contempt and petty office jealousies threaten to derail the project, but not nearly as much as the fact that Tung’s mother is comatose and requires constant monitoring at the hospital.

After driving around the block to cool off Tung convinces his non-girlfriend Wei (Karena Lam) to babysit mother and joins the ghost squad, only to find a revolt taking place. Someone’s trying to walk off with the dead little boy, and suddenly we see just how dangerous he can be. After everyones shock and grief subsides the movie shifts gears and becomes something of an investigation. Tung is to use his supercop skills to track down everything about this boy and eventually he is to follow him outside of the house; every afternoon at four the ghost tries to leave but is repelled by the ghost cage. The ultimate goal is to discover who the little boy was and where his body has been buried so they can understand the true nature of his undead persistence.

Unfortunately many liberties are taken by Hashimoto in the course of his work and the Japanese minister in charge of secret levitation decides to close up shop. Hashimoto goes rogue, Tung tries to sort out his feelings on unplugging his mother (and should really work on busting a move on Wei) and the other members of the team who never seemed to do much of anything go about their business unaffected by developments. Of course, dead little boys and their secrets don’t handle the stress so well and all hell breaks loose.