After finding a strange letter on the street, Keo Sinn (Mya Lazorka) and her university friends Joe (Jake Harrison) and Lee (Joshua Chan) find themselves tormented by the ancient curse of the vengeful Nu Gui. As the malevolent spirit unleashes havoc, Keo is forced to confront her haunting past and unravel a tragic connection to the malignant figure known as Malice (Martina Chen). Secrets will be unearthed and the boundaries of reality will blur in this harrowing tale of revenge.
“Malice: Nu Gui” review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative
For the most part, “Malice” is a pretty interesting short. One of the stronger features here is the way it manages to bring about the central storyline at play from writer Chaz Fenwick. The economic means of establishing the type of vengeful spirit Malice is and how she goes around selecting victims is really fun, establishing the folklore by utilizing the common Asian horror trope of the angry, relentless spirit stalking all those who wronged it. This ability to include various folklore bits from several different Asian cultures regarding the ability to combat the spirit with different types of black magic and spells as a means of quelling Malice's fury provides a strong touch of originality to what's otherwise a typical Asian ghost story. Added into that is a strong series of attacks and action scenes with the spirits' intensity showing through in several solid confrontations picking off Keo and her friends during the resulting rampage. Filmed with the intriguing red filter over everything, these scenes provide the requisite thrills and supernatural action needed to have a fun time overall here.
That said, there are some problems with “Malice” that crop up. The main drawback here is the overall brevity of the piece, meaning that it has to rush through the storytelling to the point of outright confusion in places. Since this takes a feature-length idea about the concept of the vengeful spirit's curse affecting Keo, Lee, and Joe and boils it down to half the length of a standard genre entry, a lot of the folklore and backstory is rushed through. It ends up making the final half where Malice's obsession with Keo feels like we're missing crucial information about the transformation that takes place. Additionally, the overly-familiar setup that takes liberally from a lot of the Asian ghost film genre means other parts of this one feel rather repetitive and familiar, lessening the impact somewhat.
Despite some places where its rushed nature and overly familiar presentation hurt it, “Malice: Nu Gui” is an overall solid piece of throwback Asian horror that still has a lot going on for it. Those with an affinity for this type of style or approach will have quite a lot to like here.
