Hong Kong

The Abandoned is the last film to come out on Netflix in 2023, granted the film came out in 2022 but only circulated at film festivals as far as I can tell. Not to be confused with 2015’s The Abandoned starring Jason Patric and Louisa Krause. Not to be confused with 2010’s The Abandoned, or 2006’s The Abandoned, 2005’s The Abandoned, 2000’s The Abandoned, 1989’s The Abandoned, 1945’s The Abandoned, or 1910’s The Abandoned. It’s a generic title spanning the literal history of film. But I digress.

Directed by Tseng Ying-Ting, you know this film is going to be joyful and light-hearted when it kicks off with the detective protagonist about to blow her brains out in her car. Little does Wu Jie know she’s about to find a new reason to keep living as her chosen spot of attempted suicide happens to be a murder location. With the body of a young migrant worker woman discovered missing a finger and her heart, Wu Jie has a new goal; to find out who murdered this woman, why they did it, and to bring them to justice.

This isn’t a movie for those looking for joy. At an hour and forty five minutes it’s full of murder, death, depressing, grief, people wanting to kill themselves, people trying to kill themselves, and people successfully killing themselves. The sets are routinely dark, dreary, and depressing, and much of the film takes place in cloudy, raining weather. It delves lightly into the dehumanization faced by immigrant workers looking to create a better life for themselves.

As a murder mystery film, the goal here is to keep the audience invested in figuring out the motive behind the killer and how our protagonist is going to eventually capture him. Will he be brought to justice? Can Wu Jie find him and stop him before his next victim is found? What are the connections between the killer and the victims, and even victims and other victims? And the film does a great job of keeping you going throughout the entire film.

And it is a gruesome film with the kind of nudity that is not meant to tantalize the viewer. They did a really great job dressing up the fake dead bodies, almost the point where you’d be forgiven for thinking they might be real. The film never feels like it’s trying to gross out the viewer, but it is a movie about murder and as such there’s some unsettling moments. It’s definitely not the kind of movie you’ll want to watch with your parents or your kids, unless they are serial killers themselves.

I noticed that the previews and IMDB list this film as being over two hours long, and the Netflix version is apparently what released theatrically in Taiwan back in September. I’m not sure where the extra twenty-odd minutes went or what they contained, but there are a few comments about how the full film dragged on a little. I guess we can be thankful they cut the film down for the Netflix release. Otherwise this is a great film to round out the year with.

Check it out.

Rating: