The Lingering Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		1.5

The Lingering Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 12, 2019

Are you an inveterate “twist guesser” who sees supposed huge surprises in films coming from a veritable mile off? I must confess I am, and I am the bane of my wife’s movie going existence since not only do I almost always guess twists long before they actually happen, I like to announce my guess to my spouse just so we can verify later that my hunch has been correct. That said, a twist needs to be decipherable to really work as a twist, and in that regard, whatever “wow” moment the creative crew behind The Lingering may have been aiming for is decidedly on the confusing side. So the good news in all of this is, for those who may watch films with a "twist guesser" at their side, even a pronouncement or two about what is most likely happening won't actually "spoil" anything, since nothing in this film ever really makes any sense to begin with.

The Lingering seems to be presenting two stories that take place thirty years apart (as a semi-helpful text overlay at one point elucidates), and so “twist guessers” are going to be almost genetically inclined toward trying to find tethers between the two tales. The first part of the film documents the travails of a young mother named Qingyi (Athena Chu) who is caring for her young son Dawa on New Year’s Eve as she awaits the return of her husband. There are weird doin’s in their dark and musty house, but Qinqyi decides to devote her attention to finding her missing spouse, leaving Dawa in the care of an elderly lady. Suffice it to say there are rather broad hints that Dawa “sees dead people”.

The second part of the film jumps forward several decades to introduce Louis Cheung as what is apparently supposed to be a grown up Dawa, although one of the first things that some folks may find confusing is that he’s called Xinzhong, and I for one am simply not conversant enough in Cantonese to know if there’s a connection between that name and the evident nickname for the little boy. Xinzhong returns to the family home, which is where The Lingering goes on a rather bizarre detour into worlds of dementia and care for aging, debilitated parents. It’s all very odd, and the final few minutes are actually admittedly quite touching in their own weird way, but the rest of this film is frankly a mess.

The Lingering Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Lingering is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. This is another Asian film where technical data is virtually nonexistent online (that I could find, anyway), but I'm assuming this was digitally captured and finished at a 2K DI. This is a nicely detailed looking presentation, given the understanding that the "horror" side of things often tends to play out in either very dimly lit or rather aggressively graded conditions, and as such detail levels can kind of rise and fall. The early part of the film is often swathed in deep blue tones, but kind of interestingly a late sequence harkening back to the same time period is almost sepia toned. More "normal" grading sequences support a healthy looking palette that also often features excellent levels of fine detail. The CGI in this piece is less than convincing and kind of adds an almost comical element at times.

The Lingering Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Lingering features a kind of hokey and yet intermittently effective DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in the original Cantonese. The film's sound design is heavily dependent upon startle effects that kind of weirdly never really pay off, they just explode into the surround channels and then subside again, as if nothing had really happened. The kind of spooky, cavernous quality of the house where much of the film takes place is effectively delivered on occasion, however. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout this problem free presentation.

The Lingering Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 1:46)

As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored so that after the trailer for this film plays, it moves on automatically to trailers for other Well Go USA releases. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

The Lingering Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Lingering is one of the odder "mash ups" of horror and, and — well, I'm frankly not sure what the filmmakers intended. There are some interesting ideas here, and the final scenes of the film actually manage to be surprisingly touching, but what comes before is often incomprehensible, so that even inveterate twist guessers may not be able to figure out if their guess was correct. Technical merits are generally strong for those considering a purchase.