Rigor Mortis - original title Geung si – is a 2013 Hong Kong horror film directed by Juno Mak, and also produced by Takashi Shimizu. The film is a tribute to the horror film series Mr. Vampire many of the former cast are featured in this film Chin Siu-ho, Anthony Chan, Billy Lau and Richard Ng, additionally Chung Fat who started in Encounters of the Spooky Kind is also featured.
Plot teaser:
A washed-up actor, desperate and suicidal, moves into a haunted apartment building where supernatural creatures, ghost hunters, taoist exorcists, and the souls of the undead walk among his neighbors.
Reviews:
“Mak has refused to go easy on himself with his latest artistic endeavor, venturing even further into the moody darkness that his earlier work, Revenge: A Love Story, suggested, while also embracing CGI and local horror iconography. Rigor Mortis is a slowburn by typical vampire movies standards, and never attempts to resurrect the humour of Mr. Vampire and its contemporaries, but proves a brave, confident and assured debut from a new independent voice in Hong Kong Cinema.” James Marsh, Twitch
“A lavish, heavy-handed retreading and reinvention of Hong Kong and Japanese horror-film tropes, saved from clinical inhumanity by its veteran cast.” Clarence Tsui, The Hollywood Reporter
“The film draws from a range of influences in the ‘Hong Kong’ or ‘Asian’ horror genres to create a tapestry of strangeness that willfully, stubbornly cannot be deposited into just one box. This both a good thing and a bad thing as the film is at its best when it doesn’t rely so heavily on the styles and looks of those who preceded it but, at the same time, feels anchored down by those same influences. It’s a strange balancing act that results in a mostly successful work that never stops being entertaining even when it doesn’t make a lot of sense.” Flay Otters, Horror-Movies.ca
