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Crippled Hashimoto (Yosuke Eguchi) leads a team of scientists to
investigate ghosts as such and the question what turns some people into
ghosts in particular., and with a material called Menger Sponge, they have
even captured the spirit of a little boy - a spirit that is dangerous
though as he, when not kept at bay by the Menger Sponge, kills everyone
who looks into his eyes, and eventually he kills one of Hashimoto's team
(Barbie Hsu), too.
Why does Hashimoto do all of this though ?
Because he figures if he becomes a ghost he can leave his crippled body
and lead a happier ... er, life.
Eventually, Hashimoto introduces a new addition to the team, Tung
(Chang Chen), a cop with exceptional eyesight who is supposed to help them
find what they have overlooked (in the literal sense of the word). Soon
enough, Tung really does come up with something, a strand of silk
emmananting from the child leading to god knows where, and Hashimoto's
team decides to release the spirit of the boy (which only those can see
whose eyes are covered with Menger Sponge, by the way), and eventually,
Tung finds out the story of the boy, who threw himself out of a window in
his school, and apparently was then strangled by his mother. So is it
hatred that kept the boy on earth ?
Eventually, Hashimoto's lab is raided, and he sucks up the spirit in a
large piece of Menger Sponge and takes it with him - which gives him extra
powers like the power to walk normally or even defy gravity. But
captivating the boy inthe piece of Menger Sponge kills his mother - who
has been on the other end of the silk thread - and reawakens her as a
spirit, and she's much more vengeful than her son has ever seen, and soon
has killed most of Hashimoto's team.
Hashimoto in the meantime has found the body of the boy - right at the
center of the National Magnetic Center ... so he figures it must be
magnetism that has turned the boy into a spirit, and he shoots himself
right there to come back in spirit form.
Meanwhile, Tung learns the whole story of the boy. He survived the jump
out of the school window but was left forever handicapped, and thus he
eventually asked his mother to kill him, which she did out of love, not
out of hate, and love was what kept the boy on earth, and what made his
mother looking for him, and once they find each other, they both vanish.
Thing is, that knowledge comes too late for Hashimoto, who is an old
cynic who has no love for anything (let alone anyone) to hold him back on
earth, and magnetism has absolutely nothing to do with the spirit world.
On close inspection, the story of Silk is of course rather
stupid and not very believable even in the context of the horror genre.
But in its own context, the story actually works, helped of course by a
decent directorial job. And garnered with a few well-placed shocks,
suspense scenes and unexpected plottwists, Silk actually makes a good
piece of horror cinema. Only thing: It would have been even more effective
with a few less CGI effects that distract from the actual storyline, but
maybe that's just me.
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