THE STORY – When a rookie ghost discovers she’s at risk of disappearing from the underworld for good, a plucky group of outcasts band together to help her realize her scaring potential and remain among the dead.
THE CAST – Bo-lin Chen, Sandrine Pinna, Gingle Wang, Yao Yi Ti, Ching-i Pai & Soso Tseng
THE TEAM – John Hsu (Director/Writer) & Kun-Lin Tsai (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 110 Minutes
“How many ghost stories have you heard in your life?” Chances are, you’re familiar with a few, but Catherine (Sandrine Pinna) genuinely wants to know. Have you heard the one about the girl who took something that didn’t belong to her? What about the one with the guy who watched a video he shouldn’t have queued up? Or maybe the one about the workaholic who stayed in the room with a curse? Catherine hopes you’re familiar with that tale, given that hiding in Room 411 at the Lucky Hotel is her specialty, the calling card that has made her famous in the underworld. As it turns out, it is all but required to be successful in the afterlife or to even exist in it at all.
That’s the problem Cho Hsiao-lei (Gingle Wang, whose character is mostly referred to as “The Rookie”) runs into soon after her untimely (and uninteresting, according to the other spirits) death stuck her in the deceased abyss without a sense of who she is or what she has to offer. Those are important things to know, seeing that John Hsu’s Land of the Dead in “Dead Talents Society,” which recently had its North American Premiere as part of TIFF’s “Midnight Madness“ program, is a mirror image of our own. Ghosts have lives in this realm; they watch television and use Instagram, and the most successful of the lot can sign endorsement deals with cosmetic companies that sell face-cleansing blood. An unofficial class system is in place, too, with “Urban Legend“ being among the most coveted statuses, while being considered unknown is suicide, and not just of the social variety.
That particular idea is where Hsu’s clever title comes into play: When Rookie suddenly starts to glitch – picture a broken laptop screen, and you’ll grasp the visual – she’s told she only has 30 days to obtain a “haunting license,“ something every ghost needs to both stalk the living and have a reputation. Without a license, a ghost disintegrates, something that is a risk for Rookie. When she flops at a talent show/audition to join the upper ranks alongside Jessica (Eleven Yao), a star ghost seeking scary minions to help do her dirty work, Makoto (Bo-lin Chen) approaches Rookie with an opportunity. She can either disappear forever or learn the ways of the proper scare from him. Urged by her best friend Camilla (Ching-i Pai), Rookie begrudgingly agrees to train with Makoto, hoping to become the underworld’s next scream queen.
As if it wasn’t immediately apparent while watching “Dead Talents Society,” Hsu’s film, above all else, is wildly silly, even while being chock-full of guts and gore. Its proceedings take up a slapstick tone, with all of its swings and stabs receiving accompaniment from what sounds like a soundboard full of “wooshes“ and “gurgles“ galore. That’s certainly by design – it’s fitting to Taiwanese cinema’s roots in kung-fu action films, a genre that Hsu nods to here – and it never takes the viewer out of the experience. That he’s able to bring horror, comedy, and action together here is a feat, only outdone by the fact that he serves them all equally.
Of course, the film’s conceit itself isn’t an unfamiliar one: We’ve seen “characters have to get something done in a certain amount of time, or else!“ before. But, amidst its repetitive training montages and over-the-top humor, “Dead Talents Society“ manages to work in thematic examinations of found family, fame, and romance. The ever-entertaining ensemble never lets up in their pursuits, whether for a year or a laugh; Chen, Wang, and Tseng – who plays the techy Kouji – are all standouts. The film’s comments on fame might not unveil anything particularly profound, but they create a complicated, playfully antagonistic dynamic between characters in separate classes.
Perhaps the film’s strongest element is how it balances the notion of one’s search for an identity with its ghostly conceit. Hsu often lays this on too thick, opting to aim for the emotional jugular in a film that recurrently features a woman diving from the top of a hotel onto its marquee. But, as “Dead Talents Society“ chugs along towards its obvious yet sentimental conclusion, its message comes into focus that only the dead (or zombified undead) would find uninspired. “What does it mean to be seen?“ Rookie asks Catherine, who was once the Jennifer Aniston of the perished. “That’s any ghost’s guess,” Rookie’s quasi-mentor replies, offering an ambiguous, hopeful sentiment for her pupil to latch onto as she continues to find herself in the afterlife. Eventually, our Rookie figures it out: “Being dead was the first time I felt alive.“ Like “Dead Talents Society,“ sometimes the simplest sensation of being alive is enough to carry you into the next life.
