Feng Shui (Filipino) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: After a woman finds a bagua mirror, she receives nothing but good luck at the cost of those around her being killed by a malevolent spirit.

Review: Now we come to the final film in the Kris Aquino quartet of horror although it was technically the first made. As much as I've trashed the stupidity of "Segunda Mano" and "Dalaw," I actually really like this movie and "Sukob." There is a lot of originality and imagination being displayed even if it slowly crosses into the realm of the ridiculous. Out of the four, this film certainly has the highest quality of production value and appears to be the most plotted out. However, the main reason why "Sukob" is the best of the bunch is because A) it's scarier B) the ghost/force is more creative and unique and C) it lacks this stupid husband drama the other movies all have including "Feng Shui." Seriously, this lame drama with cheating husbands/boyfriends feels so unnecessary and more as filler; save it for the beloved soap operas that comprise Filipino TV. Oh wait, "Sukob's" entire plot is set into motion because of a cheating husband...FUCK!

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but Ms. Aquino always has this unusual hot/not thing going on. She is a curvy woman, which is perfect, but sometimes she looks stunning while other times like a corpse with very little grey area in between. Well anyway, this time around Ms. Aquino plays Joy who is similar to her other roles in that timid, wimpy kind of way when dealing with her cheating husband. The family, which includes two little kids, have just moved into a new house in some kind of gated community. Educate me here filipinos, is it typical for there to be security guards in your average neighborhood or is this something out the ordinary? I only bring this up because the security guards play a big role in the story and mostly serve as the police when shenanigans occur. One day while coming home from work, Joy finds a bagua, which is a taoist mirror used in, you guessed it, feng shui, which was left behind on a bus; later Joy learns the man that left the bagua was run over by a bus. Joy is encouraged by her friends to hang the bagua outdoors as it will supposedly bring good luck. Sure enough, Joy starts to have success at work, random wins and free money, and her husband has equal success. Unbeknownst to Joy, each time she receives such unbelievable good luck someone who has looked into the bagua's mirror dies. You know, this sounds a lot like it should have been an episode of "Friday the 13th: The Series." There is a cool concept they introduce whereby the death of the individual will have a connection to their Chinese zodiac sign. For example, the guy that was run over by the bus is year of the rabbit and the bus company was called rabbit, or an old lady died from some disease coming from a rat and she was year of the rat--you get the idea. For the most part this works, but a few deaths are farfetched and test your limits of plausibility.

Because they couldn't simply make a plot that revolved around imaginative ideas, Joy stumbles on her husband cheating with his old girlfriend, Dina. I'd love to say this drama is a subplot, but it almost takes center stage as a lot of Joy's motives relate to this shit. The husband is so fucking annoying to boot and you want to roundhouse kick him in the head. He doesn't even have a good reason to be cheating on Joy and Dina looks like a tranny. If that wasn't dumb enough, Dina has fucking drama with her husband discovering that she's cheating with Joy's husband! I'm like clenching my fists in frustration at how stupid this all feels, oh, and the delivery of all this is terrible. To counter the stupidity, a growing number of zombie-ish ghosts are amassing at Joy's house whenever she's away as the bagua racks up victims; I'll give this film some credit, the ghosts look pretty decent and sort of scary. We discover that the guy at the beginning was trying to get rid of the bagua, but it wouldn't explain why he'd simply allow it to end up in the hands of another family. Then some dude explains that this bagua belonged to a Chinese aristocrat that was betrayed and burned while holding the bagua. This adds a primary ghost which we do see lurking in the background from time to time with her twisted feet from that foot-binding shit they used to do. It was a creative notion, but this Chinese ghost doesn't look all that scary. Apparently the only way to permanently destroy the bagua is to refuse the good fortune it offers and then destroy it or else it will simply come back. Thankfully, Dina's husband kills Dina and Joy's husband epically while sparing Joy in, I guess, another opportunity for good luck. At the end, Joy is offered tons of money from the original owner's wife in order to get back the bagua. Joy refuses and believes she is rejecting good fortune and then destroys the bagua. Since it was plain as day that that was not an instance of good luck, and more about greed, she discovers her kids and best friend had been killed in an accident and added to the ghostly horde as they turn on Joy. The final shot is of kids taking the bagua from the trash at Joy's home, presumably weeks after her death, as the Chinese ghost looks onward; but who knows, maybe Joy wasn't killed. "Feng Shui 2" anyone?

If they only removed the super lame and cliched cheating plotline, this would have been significantly better; at least downplay it or change things up and make Joy use the bagua to get the husband killed! As it stands, this is still an excellent film with some creative ideas, okay scares, a haunting musical score, and an imaginative way to tie everything altogether. There were a few things that could have been done better, like the main ghost, but, for the most part, the ideas don't come off as too over the top and there were some original deaths. Give this one a shot as it's one of the better Filipino horror movies out there and the production values were high especially in comparison to some of the other garbage. Or, if you feel so inclined, watch all four Kris Aquino horror films and tell me which you thought was the best/worst.

Notable Moment: When Dina is shot and killed with a shotgun by her husband. She goes flying so far that it's almost comical and given the abrupt and satisfying nature to the shot, it becomes pure awesomeness.

Final Rating: 6.5/10