Soul

A fascinating yet chilling meditation on demonic possession and the mysterious happenings surrounding it, Soul is the work of Chung Mong-Hong, one of Taiwan's best and most stylish filmmakers, whose previous films Parking and The Fourth Portrait have won him critical acclaim.

Toying with the ideas of reincarnation and soul migration after death, Chung's eerie tale is about a man who has lost his soul and establishes an unsettling symbiotic bond with the stranger who comes to inhabit his abandoned body.

A-Chuan (Joseph Chang), is a quiet thirty-year-old who works as a chef in a Japanese restaurant in Taiwan. One day, without apparent reason, he falls into a weird mental state. As if under a spell, he doesn't respond to any external stimulus, and doesn't speak or eat.

His colleagues at the restaurant take him to the mountains, back to the place where his father, Wang (Jimmy Wong), lives and grows orchids. Wang and A-Chuan's sister are puzzled — then violence explodes within and around A-Chuan, setting off a series of totally unexpected occurrences.

A unique psychological thriller, Soul investigates the complex mind of its protagonist, and probes what happens to the relationship between a father and his son when the bond once made of layers of days spent together, of comfortable memories and unspoken family secrets, is shattered by a foreign presence.

The film's unsettling aura is heightened through the impressive performances of Chang and Wong, while Chung's lush aesthetic imbues each and every frame with mysterious charm.

GIOVANNA FULVI