One of the more prominent and popular genre video-games in recent memory, Red Candle's “Detention” was a massively popular entry that managed to hit on a topical period of Taiwanese history with the focus on the White Terror period in the 1960s. Already adapted into a feature-length adaptation by John Hsu, prominent streaming service Netflix dips into the fray by adapting the game into a new series released at the tail-end of December 2020 with two episodes per week until the end of the month.
Arriving at Greenwood High School in the 1990s, transfer student Yunxiang Liu (Wei Li Ling), steps into the forbidden area on the campus by accident where she encounters the ghost of Ruixin Fang (Ning Han). Fang later unveils the hidden history and trauma over the past 30 years, and how a group of young students and teachers were persecuted as they fought for freedom in the era of censorship. Their stories keep coming back to the school like haunting nightmares, waiting to be told and revealed.
For the most part, this series adaptation is quite difficult to get into. The main focus staring the viewer in the face about this project is the sheer uselessness plaguing it. The feature-film adaptation of the video-game released last year told this same story in a format that is only slightly longer than an individual episode is. This ends up rendering much of the series to feel as though it drags itself out to the point of overkill and boredom. This is furthered by the unfortunate release of the series so close to the film version, recreating many of the same exact scenes and storylines, making it somewhat hard to feel original and unique, particularly since the feature does the same thing in a shorter time-frame. Making the majority of the episodes around an hour in length is exhausting, focusing on Yunxiang's relationship with Shen Hua that grows out of their shared love of poetry, the shared timelines between Yunxiang and Riixin and the overwhelming political tyranny in place at the time. These storylines all come to the forefront instead of more nominal supernatural horror. While these stories are somewhat heartbreaking and potentially terrifying to those who know history, viewers looking for boos and jump-scares will be sorely disappointed at the drama-centered tone at play in the series.
Likewise, the heavy focus on history could be a detriment to what's happening. While the international appeal here is clearly intended to be given major focus, those out of the loop on such circumstances or unwilling to invest in preliminary research before blindly going into something seems a bit odd. However uncomfortable the situations here, from the bag searches, the in-person beatings or even outright execution might be, that's as deep as it gets in terms of uncomfortable scenes and images. These really happened to people in that time period but the everyday-facet-of-life mentality the series approaches these actions isn't given much context into what's going on or why the characters are treated in this manner. Again, the focus instead becomes more centered around the trauma associated with the political oppression of the time, involving how the students are treated and ostracized rather than featuring a legitimate supernatural threat as there's never any indication Ruixin poses any threat to anyone. All of this hardly makes any sense as to why anyone would want to look further into the history of what's going on.
When ‘Detention' gets down to the individual episodes and gets away from all that, it's somewhat better but not by much. Again, trying to pack in so much during the hour-long run-time of each of the episodes makes it difficult to stay invested overall, but the first episode detailing the arrival at the town and settling into her life at the school is a surprisingly immersive experience. Likewise, as the series progresses and the intrusive nature of the political authorities trying to assert their regulations on the students, this becomes far more chilling. This is due to the various treatments shown to be inflicted on those deemed rebellious, which ranged from whipping and beating to removal from the culture and later found to be executed if not done in front of everyone. Those antics are somewhat shocking, especially in the latter half when Yunxiang's relationship with Shen Hua is brought to the forefront, bringing about themes of sexual assault and victim-blaming that comes about through campus. The revelation highlights the cruelty of human beings which is the biggest threat in the series rather than the ghost in the middle of it all. However, none of these elements are decidedly supernatural and keep that hidden in favor of tragedy that makes everything somewhat of a drag.
Overlong, redundant and just not that much of a horror series at all, the shift in focus onto more realistic and genuinely terrifying human protagonists is a noteworthy change that might be more appealing to some watchers. However, those expecting something more traditionally horror in the form of an active and imposing supernatural presence, jump-scares, or threatening imagery will be sorely disappointed with ‘Detention' and will be better off sticking with the movie. In the end, only those viewers who are willing to stick with this one through its changes or are curious to know more about that time-period of history would be interested in the specific title.
