''Silk'' (詭絲) is a 2006 Taiwanese horror film directed by Su Chao-Bin. It was screened out of competition at the
2006 Cannes Film Festival
The 59th Cannes Film Festival was held from 17 to 28 May 2006. Twenty films from eleven countries were in competition for the Palme d'Or. The President of the Official selection Jury was Wong Kar-wai, the first Chinese director to preside over the ...
.
Plot
In
Taipei
Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...
, a team of ghost hunters pay a freelance camera man to photograph places looking for
paranormal activity
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...
. From the sounds of things, previous attempts have been unsuccessful. The camera man is taking his pictures and this time captures a picture of a boy in a seemingly empty room. The team of ghost hunters are thrilled and take it upon themselves to further investigate.
They bring a police officer, a sharp shooter and a lip reader for further help in their investigation for further study of the ghost. The officer has a sick mother who is in the state of coma and has a decaying body. Though the officer refuses to offer help in the initial stages, he accepts the case due to curiosity. On the other side the director of this entire program calls the team to give up their research as it seems worthless and is costly to the
Japanese government
The Government of Japan consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and is based on popular sovereignty. The Government runs under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947. It is a unitary stat ...
. The team reveals a magnetic cube which can split itself and capture energy of any form. Its capacity to hold energy is such that it can withstand the force of gravity and float in air. The director obviously agrees to offer further support. It is further revealed that the walls of the room of the captured ghost are packed with thousands of such cubes to obstruct the movement of the ghost boy.
The inclusion of a police officer angers one of the teammates who decides to take revenge on the team. She steps into the room of the captured ghost and sprays an energy
synchronizer which allows her to capture the ghost inside her pocket. The team which arrives later is shocked at the missing ghost and demands she tells the truth. In the meantime, the ghost escapes from her pocket and kills her. Her soul appears for a short span of time and vanishes.
Further observation reveals that the captured ghost follows a fixed pattern of activities like staring out of the window and trying to walk through a door at a particular time. This causes the team to set the ghost boy free into the open world to trace his activities. The police officer follows the boy to his school which apparently was the place of his suicide. The ghost boy was also found to leave a trace of
silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the ...
strands along his foot steps.
Investigation in school reveals clues pointing to the place and cause of his death. They follow the clues to a dead body and conclude that he was strangled to death by his own mother. This produced a strong hate in him which has made his soul restless. Furthermore, the body of this dead boy is found to be in the center of a
nuclear fusion reactor whose
magnetic flux is also found to have caused his unstable soul.
The police officer doubts a relation between the ghost boy and the silk strands. He follows the silk strands which leads him to an unwell women in an hospital, who dies shortly afterwards. On the other side, the director issues orders to cease the project, which angers the team leader. The team leader captures the soul of the boy in a magnetic cube and leaves without a trace. This causes the soul of the boy's mother to take revenge on all the people involved in the team by killing them.
The mom tries to kill the police officer's girlfriend. The police officer arrives at the scene with a
sniper rifle
A sniper rifle is a high-precision, long-range rifle. Requirements include accuracy, reliability, mobility, concealment and optics for anti-personnel, anti-materiel and surveillance uses of the military sniper. The modern sniper rifle is a ...
and sprays the bullets with
holy water
Holy water is water that has been blessed by a member of the clergy or a religious figure, or derived from a well or spring considered holy. The use for cleansing prior to a baptism and spiritual cleansing is common in several religions, from ...
. The police officer saves his girlfriend but the ghost mom is chases after him. He drives away and crashes his car into a subway entrance. He escapes into a train but the ghost mom manages to catch him. His girlfriend calls him and he tells her to check on his mom, who has been hospitalized. He says sorry and prepares to be killed by the ghost mom. She reaches into his heart and stops it.
The team leader sets the ghost boy free and kills himself in the same spot as of the boy so that he can turn into a ghost. The boy, now released, goes to where the police officer is and reaches into his heart and revives him. He and his mother, both as ghosts, hug. The police officer then calls the team leader to tell him that the team leader was wrong. The boy's energy wasn't stuck in the world because of hate, it was because of his bond with his mother. The police officer returns home. He finds his mother's ghost sitting in his living room. He asks if she is angry at him. She doesn't reply and stands up, puts an egg into a pot, and disappears. The police officer stares at the egg in the pot, and it disappears just like his mom. It is revealed that his girlfriend signed her death certificate at the hospital as the patient's daughter-in-law.
Cast
*
Chang Chen
Chang Chen (born 14 October 1976) is a Taiwanese actor. He was born in Taipei, Taiwan. His father Chang Kuo-chu and his brother Hans Chang are also actors.
Career
Chang started his film career at a very young age. He was then selected by a T ...
as Tung
*
Yōsuke Eguchi
is a Japanese actor and singer. Since 1986, he has appeared in a number of television series and movies. He is married to the singer-songwriter Chisato Moritaka
(born 11 April 1969) is a Japanese pop singer who also is notable as a songwrit ...
as Hashimoto
*
Karena Lam
Karena Lam (; born 17 August 1978) is a Taiwanese Canadian actress and singer based in Hong Kong. In 2015, she won the Best Actress award at the Golden Horse Awards for her role in ''Zinnia Flower
''Zinnia Flower'' () is a 2015 Taiwanese fi ...
as Wei
*
Barbie Hsu
Barbie Hsu (; born 6 October 1976) is a Taiwanese actress, singer, and television host. She is best known for her leading role in the television series '' Meteor Garden'' (2001).
Life and career
Hsu was born in Taipei, Taiwan on 6 October 197 ...
as Su
*
Chen Bolin
Chen Bolin (; born 27 August 1983), also known as Wilson Chen, is a Taiwanese actor.
Early life and education
Chen was born on 27 August 1983. While in high school, Chen participated in the Taiwanese variety show ' due to his similarity to T ...
as Ren
*
Janine Chang
Janine Chang Chun-ning (; born September 4, 1982) is a Taiwanese actress and film producer. Chang attended National Taipei University and obtained a bachelor's degree in law. In June 2010, Chang graduated from the Institute of Industrial Econom ...
as Mei
*
Wanfang as Ghost Mother
*
Leon Dai
Leon Dai (, born 27 July 1966) is a Taiwanese actor and film director. His film '' Cannot Live Without You'' was Taiwan's submission to the 82nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.
The film also won two awards at the 46th Golden Hor ...
as SWAT Leader
*
Jag Huang
Jag Huang (; born 13 May 1981) is a Taiwanese actor, screenwriter and acting coach who began his career in theater. He is known for starring in the television series ''Wake Up
Wake Up or wake up is to awake. It may also refer to:
Music Album ...
as Bomb Squad B
Remake
In 2009, it was revealed that
Gold Circle Films
Gold Circle Films is an American independent film production and sales company, mainly focusing on horror and romance films founded in 2000 by former co-founder of Gateway Computer, Norman Waitt Jr. Titles released by Gold Circle include ''Whit ...
was looking to develop an American remake of ''Silk''.
Bloody-Disgusting News: Thai Horror 'Silk' Getting Remade
/ref>
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Silk
2006 films
2000s supernatural horror films
2000s science fiction horror films
2006 horror films
Taiwanese supernatural horror films
Taiwanese ghost films
Taiwanese science fiction horror films