Shadowplay

Shadowplay

2019

Director- Tony Pietra Arjuna

Cast- Tony Eusoff, Juria Hartmans, Iman Corinne Adrienne, Khairil M. Bahar, Ayez Shaukat Fonseka Farid, Stephen Rahman Hughes, Tehmina Kaoosji, Radhi Khalid, Susan Lankester, Benedict Ly, Riki Rikando, Megat Sharizal, Jay Sheldon, Chacko Vadaketh

From Malaysia

            

    Anton (Tony Eusoff) is an aspiring private detective who likes to read detective novels. He specializes in finding rare objects but gets a job finding a missing girl. He has an emotional interest in this case as he himself was once a missing person. He only has a vague recollection of it but has scary memories of a creepy looking man dragging a frightened girl away from him.

He gets his hands on a rare novel, Adieu Syangku, and it seems to be giving him clues to solve the case. The novel reads like a “choose your adventure” book. However, some of the choices lead to death, which he finds out when one of the suspects kills him! Except he’s still alive, reading the novel, and picks a new option. It’s at this point that you start to realize this is not a straight forward narrative.  His clues lead him to the people who kidnapped the missing girl and he realizes that the case is related to his own childhood disappearance.

There are a lot of different influences evident in this film, both narratively and visually. The movie is definitely surreal, not as much as say, a Jean Rollin film, but about on par with a David Lynch film. The movie operates within its own set of rules that aren’t the same as the real world. Time is a relative concept and some things that have happened undo themselves and happen again differently. Like a dream, it makes sense in the dream, and only after waking does the irrationality become evident.

There is also some Michael Mann influence in there as most of the movie takes place at night, in the city. The city doesn’t take on its own personality like in a Mann film, but effort is made to incorporate the cityscape into the story telling. The visuals are very interesting. The color palette isn’t as vibrant as Suspira but it does present a lot of bold images with contrasting, bright colors that are both beautiful and jarring.

My knowledge of Asian horror is not as extensive as that of Western horror, and what I mainly know are the films from Hong Kong and Japan. My knowledge of Southeast Asian cinema was limited to low budget movies from the 80s and 90s like Lady Terminator and Dangerous Seductress.  Shadowplay definitely benefits from, and takes advantage of, the new era of digital film making. It looks as good as any bigger budget Western film, but it still has that different take on things that make Eastern movies interesting. I also have to say, I liked the “choose your adventure” plot device. I had some of those books as a kid and they gave me countless hours of enjoyment.

I’d say broadly that this movie would be classified as horror but really it’s dark fantasy. Check it out if you want something interesting and don’t mind the absence of a straight forward narrative.