One of the finest exploits of the Asian horror scene, it's been mentioned numerous times the influence and impact the J-Horror scene of the late 90s and early 2000s had on the international scene. Not only gracing the world with all-time classics from Ringu, Ju-On, Dark Waters, and much more as well as remakes of those efforts, the landscape was changed quite handily with the release of those titles as scores of films emerged in its wake, influenced mightily from them. One of the many titles taken from that scene is this Chinese feature from director Zhao Xiaoxi that's freely available online through the China Movie Official YouTube channel.
On a dark and stormy night, Liu Ling (Tao Hui) finds three corpses suspected of being murdered in a hut. She becomes terrified and wants to escape, but a black phantom slowly climbs up behind her, never to be seen again. Many years later, Liu Tian (Wang Cheng) brings friends Fang Wenqing (Wu Qijiang) and Ye Zi (Zhao Shijin) and others to the ghost village again to find the whereabouts of his sister Liu Ling. There is an unnamed monument at the entrance of the village. At nightfall, a series of horrible things happen. The next day, everyone sees Liu Tian in front of the stele. It turned out that he suspected his sister was buried under the stele. Liu Tian came to the haunted house where his sister had an accident and found her sister's skeleton. That night Liu Tian kept having nightmares and his spirit collapsed. From then on, every night in the dead of night, a ghost with only a head, a face, and no body would appear next to their pillows. Can they still leave here?
For the most part, “Mysterious Faces” is a serviceable enough Asian ghost effort. One of the better aspects here is the general sense of atmosphere and suspense created around the central village. This whole location is a wholly eerie and chilling setpiece that truly captures the abandoned and desolate vibe effectively. Stuck in the middle of the jungle, accessible only through an arduous trip and completely enveloped in fog, the area around the village is the perfect fodder for ghost movies before taking its layout into question. The confusing nature of the pathways leading into strange sections of the village, decrepit and falling down interior structures containing crumbling artifacts, and all manner of creepy occult paraphernalia litter the remains they stumble upon. When we do get some kind of backstory information on the area, the storyline in place involving the ritualistic burying of bodies with masks to prevent spirits from attacking them fills in the gaps incredibly well.
This setup allows “Mysterious Face” to work out a far more impressive run of shock and suspense scenes than expected. Most of these are centered around the outright creepy designs on the masks left behind in the village. With someone in the group coming upon a mask left behind while on their search, either laying in plain sight or inside a cabinet or container of some kind, there are some really suspenseful moments regarding whether or not the ghost is hiding behind it or not. The suddenness of its appearance as the whole thing turns out to be real, offers some strong shock jumps-scares with it coming up behind an unsuspecting victim and they realize too late what's going on. Several other fun scenes involve the ghost manipulating the area around a victim to attack which has some fun to it, and the finale, featuring the revelation of what's going on in the village, brings out several other fun moments here for its likable aspects.
There aren't too many flaws in “Mysterious Face” but it does have some minor issues. The main drawback is the repeated use of the all-too-common trope of Asian ghost movies regarding the long black-haired ghost girl with a white face running around killing people. Despite some genuinely thrilling moments when it appears out of nowhere, the fact that it trades for the usual stand-by found in the genre can be seen as immensely repetitive. Rather than doing something new, there's a reliance on the genres past which makes for a somewhat troublesome time for those that have grown tired of utilizing that trope once again. This also causes the film to become slightly formulaic in the second half where the endless sightings and encounters throughout the village fail to signal any kind of haste to leave the village for their own self-preservation. That lack of sense is the only problem here as there's more than enough evidence of something malicious going on yet the groups' reluctance to leave for very valid reasons in favor of staying there.
Formulaic to a fault but with enough positives to overcome that, “Mysterious Face” is never more than a serviceable-at-best example of an Asian ghost movie that doesn't have too many real issues. Fans of this particular style of genre fare or who appreciate Asian ghost movies in general will have the most to enjoy here.
