Tinh Nguoi Duyen Ma is not a perfect film. The middle act drags slightly as Bao vacillates between believing in the ghost and dismissing it as superstition. Some side characters (the village drunkards) are clichés.
Cinematographer Nguyen Khoa captures the Mekong Delta in sickly greens and deep blacks. The daytime scenes are almost overwhelmingly lush and romantic (reminiscent of The Lover ). But at night, the same trees become claws, and the fog becomes a shroud. There is a 6-minute single-take shot of Bao rowing his boat through a flooded, abandoned temple that is pure nightmarish art. Tinh Nguoi Duyen Ma Netflix
For international audiences, this is your gateway drug into Vietnamese horror, which is currently experiencing a renaissance. For Vietnamese audiences, it is a proud, terrifying, and heartbreaking reflection of national folklore. Tinh Nguoi Duyen Ma is not a perfect film
However, as a horror-romance, it achieves something rare. It makes you afraid of falling in love. The final image—a single lotus flower floating on a dark river—will haunt you for days. Cinematographer Nguyen Khoa captures the Mekong Delta in
A: No. Only original Vietnamese audio with subtitles. Trust us, the original audio (especially the ghost’s wailing) is essential.
A: 1 hour 52 minutes (112 minutes; 6 minutes shorter than the theatrical cut). Have you watched ‘Tinh Nguoi Duyen Ma’ on Netflix? Share your theories about the ending in the comments below. Did Bao really break the curse, or did the Duyen Ma win?