The Tag Along is a Taiwanese horror movie from 2015. First of all I must say two things... Well let me do the synopsis and I will tell you what I think.Synopsis
Ho Chih-Wei (the grandson) is very focused on his work of property agent. He barely sees his girl Shen Yi-Chun (the radio girl) and his grandmother Ho Wen Shu-Fang. Then some old woman who had previously d
isappear reappears and his grandmother starts to act strange and then disappears. First he doesn't understand but then he start to comprehend what his happening because he still feels her presence there. Then something appears, after he went to the old woman's house, and he starts to act strange... One night he goes to her girlfriend and says that he bought a house and he wants to have children (when would he see them?) but the radio girl doesn't want marriage or a child. One night they go to his house to eat with his grandmother which is not in the house. She watches him eat worms, cockroaches and other insects. She quickly grab the security guard (the uncle of the boy) but no sight of the food or the boy. She starts to wonder if it's her mind.
Then the grandmother appears and says that the little girl wants someone for her grandson and she goes to the woods. The girl with a group of rescue team venture behind her and soon find her. The girl then travels deep into the woods (after being separated from the rescue team) and confronts the beast. We later understand that she had a child and gave it to adoption or something like that. We have five or more minutes about remorse and such...Later on she confronts the girl in red (now a monster or something like that) and still she prevails. Afterwards we see the radio girl, the grandmother and grandson all dining together. A moth then appears in the wall...
Review
My opinion is that this is a great movie. I have seen hundreds of movies and read a thousand books. It's very difficult to innovate or to bring something new. This movie got the idea from that photo (where we see the girl in red behind the group in the wood) and then they took several things from other books and movies... The tree spirits per example and some cliches like the girl on all four common in Japanese movies.Nevertheless it's a good movie. The picture it's great, the acting again great but I felt that it's never fully explain who the girl is or was. They believe that if we cut down a tree needlessy we are capture by the trees but why did that happened to Grandmother? And if grandmother was willing to die for her grandson why was he capture? And what about the uncle? He was attacked and then what? Oh well.. Nevertheless this movie and others I've seen recently fueled my hunger for asian movies.
In the end thinking about it... This movie is about the destruction of our mother earth, the negligence we give to our loved ones because of work or other personal goals. Then we've feelings. The boy who didn't give importance to his grandmother and then he felt lost and girl who had to face her own personal demons of leaving a child to adoption. It's a horror movie? Yes but not that scary in my opinion bar a couple moments.
If you enjoyed this movie go read "Classic of Mountains and Seas” where due to human beings's greed and weakness are able to draw them to the woods planting like trees. This is a chinese folklore and bear in mind that most Taiwanese are descended by Chinese that colonized Taiwan and escape from the Communist in the 40's.
I think Wei Ning Hsu (Tiffany Ann Hsu) has a great future in front of her because she won a lot of awards because of this movie... and she doesn't even like horror movies. I must watch Battle of Memories coming in December 2016
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