The House That Never Dies: Reawakening - DVD Review

[Michael Scott]

The House That Never Dies: Reawakening

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
I was actually shocked to find out that 2014 Chinese bonanza The House that Never Dies didn’t ever get a U.S. domestic home video release. Even the older DVD format hasn’t had a release, which makes me really hope that Well Go USA can finagle the rights to that one since they seemed to have grabbed hold of the sequel, The House that Never Dies: Reawakening. With the gangbusters success that the mainland Chinese horror films had back in 2014, it was almost inevitable that a sequel was going to be made, and this time helmed by up and coming director Joe Chien (who has cut his teeth on directing with a wicked set of Asian zombie movies, so his shift to a supernatural ghost story makes perfect sense). The film is not as insanely fun as the first movie, but Reawakening has a distinct vibe to it that is a whole lot of fun to sit through, and once the film gets past the first act hurdle, it really gets going and doesn’t let go till the end.

You don’t actually need to have seen The House that Never Dies to get into and understand The House that Never Dies: Reawakening. Brief bits of the first film are mentioned in passing, such as Yin Lau (Gillian Chung) being the daughter of the original star, and the OBVIOUS connection of the house being the same, as well as the evil spirit being the same. However, other than those connections, the film’s plot and the mission of the spirits is pretty much self contained. Meaning it’s easy for someone to slip in and watch this one without ever having seen the original (although I highly suggest it, just due to the fact that The House that Never Dies was a great horror flick).

Revolving around the true “haunted” house, found on 81 Chaoyangmennei street in Beijing, the story picks up years after the first movie’s horrible experience. This time house #81 is being restored by an art history restorer Song Teng (Julian Cheung) along with his assistant Lao Yin (Gillian Cheung). It’s the 7th anniversary of his and his doctor wife’s marriage, but upon uncovering an urn with a mystical spell attached to it, Song Teng is now out a working staff as they exit in superstitious paranoia. He Fei (Mei Ting), his wife, decides to move into the dilapidated mansion so that she can spend more time with Teng, but soon starts to experience some strange phenomena. She begins to see visions of the past inhabitants, who supposedly were murdered in this very house. However, this is more than just a vision, as the past spirits begin to manipulate Dr. He Fei and channel their malevolence through her, spawning a new terror that may not allow the couple to make it out alive.

The House that Never Dies: Reawakening is not AS good as the original, but it is still a rather fun sequel at heart. The first 30 minutes take a while to really pass by, setting up the inevitable spiritual interactions and backstories of the main characters, but doing so with some rather cheesy “tone” scares with the score. It’s not until the film goes fully supernatural that things get going, and when they get going, they get going. Like most Chinese horror movies (and Chinese films in general), the lore is steeped in the past and period piece situations. The film doesn’t just thrust you into a house full of ghosts who want to murder you. It carefully goes through the past of the spirits, showing their past life sufferings, and what drove them to this point in meticulous detail. It almost plays out like a period piece drama for the introduction of the spirits, and you start to gain a camaraderie and empathy with them. Even when the demonic ghosts go full on psycho on He Fei and Song Teng, there’s this mysterious balance between feeling sorry for them, and being scared of them.

Another sub plot that really drives the movie forward is He Fei’s guilt over the loss of their child, and the more she sticks around the evil house, the more her guilt combined with the manipulations of the spirits beings to driver her mad. Song Teng seeeeeeeems to be the main character at first glance, but once He Fei begins getting the visions of the past the movie slowly transitions over from his restoration of house 81, and changes over to a character driven horror movie that focuses on the pain his wife is suffering. My only complaints about the film are that it’s a bit too busy at times. The idea of He Fei and Song Teng being trapped in the house with the spirits is more than enough, but for some reason the script tries to cram in a few subplots about perceived infedility with Teng’s assistant, and a nerdy employee who wants to steal He Fei away from him. These sub plots are kind of jarring to the main one, and really feel like they’re superfluous and not really necessary in any way, shape, or form. Other than that, this is a pretty good sequel that ‘s more than entertaining.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Shot digitally (from what I could gather), the 480p DVD encode is satisfactory, but a bit plagued with black crush and persistent color banding to be really GREAT. The dark film is heavily tinged with blue and hints of teal and gold, leading to a very bland look that is sometimes interspersed with some wonderfully colorful period piece costumes (the red wedding gown at the ill fated wedding stands out incredibly well), but there is still some incredible details to behold. The stitching on the gown, the creases in the faces of the ghosts, and countless backstops of the house show up with good clarity. The problems ensue from the heavy banding and black crush, both of with can be rather persistent and blatantly aggravating at times. It’s an overall good transfer, but one that has enough flaws to be noticeable.







Audio:

Well Go USA has given us two language tracks to listen to, a dub in Mandarin (both in 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby Digital), and one in Cantonese (same 5.1 and 2.0 options). Both tracks seem to be equal in mixing levels, with the only difference being which dialect you choose to listen to it in. Personally I found the Mandarin voices to be a bit better overall, but then again some of the actors were speaking natural Mandarin, and others Cantonese, so it really boils down to personal choice over which you like best. The 384 kbps track (sadly not 448 kbps) is rather good, with clean dialog and great usage of the surround channels with all the ghostly happenings going on. LFE is deep and powerful, and the only reason I didn’t rate the track a bit higher is that I feel the lowered audio bitrate allows for some minor distortion on the LFE as well as a bit of a thin feeling on some of the higher vocals.







Extras:

• Well Go USA Previews
• Film Trailer

Final Score: ​

The House that Never Dies: Reawakening is a solid sequel to a great horror movie, but sadly is a DVD only release from Well Go USA. If you’re a fan of slow burn horror movies that start out slow n stead, but ramp up big time in the second half, then Reawakening is for you. The disc is your standard Well Go USA affair, with previews as the only special features, and a decent audio and video encode. As I said, if you like slow burn ghost stories, Reawakening is a recommended fun watch for sure.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Joan Chen, Julian Cheung, Gillian Chung, Ting Mei, Yikun Wang, Vivian Wu
Directed by: Joe Chien
Written by: Frankie Tam, Cai Jun, Huang Huihui
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 MPEG2
Audio: Mandarin: Dolby Digital 5.1, Mandarin DD 2.0, Cantonese DD 5.1, Cantonese DD 2.0
Subtitles: English
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 97 Minutes
DVD Release Date: December 4th 2018

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Fun Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I never saw this one so will look for it.

 

[Asere]

Thanks for the review. I have never heard of this title before but will watch it one day if I can rent it.