The Horror Anthology That Should’ve Stayed in the Shadows
Every so often, a film comes along that makes you realize horror anthologies can, in fact, die of natural causes. Tales from the Dark 1, the 2013 Hong Kong triptych of supernatural misfires, manages this feat with gusto—three segments, three directors, and approximately zero consistent scares.
Adapted from short stories by Lilian Lee (whose literary resume includes Rouge and Green Snake, actual works of beauty and depth), this cinematic séance feels less like a ghost story and more like a mandatory corporate team-building exercise conducted in a haunted office building. Each segment starts with a promising hook and ends in either confusion or mild annoyance.
It’s the cinematic equivalent of staying up past midnight to summon spirits and accidentally connecting to a customer service hotline instead.
Segment One: Stolen Goods — Simon Yam Steals the Show (and Not in a Good Way)
The first story, directed by and starring Simon Yam, is Stolen Goods, which could more accurately be titled Stolen Time. Yam plays Kwan, an unemployed man who decides that the best way to pay rent is to steal urns from a columbarium and ransom them back to grieving families.
If that sounds tasteless, don’t worry—it’s also tedious. The premise promises macabre comedy, but the execution lands somewhere between unintentional parody and bureaucratic nightmare. Watching Kwan scribble ransom notes for the dead feels less like a descent into madness and more like an extended episode of Extreme Pawn: Afterlife Edition.
There’s a potentially clever idea buried beneath all the ashes—a commentary on poverty, greed, and spiritual comeuppance—but Yam’s direction has all the subtlety of a ghost with a megaphone. When the vengeful dead finally get their moment, it’s less chilling revelation and more like a public service announcement about fire safety.
Yam, a fine actor in other films, seems to be directing himself as if auditioning for the role of “Guy Who Dies Ironically in the First Ten Minutes.” And die he does, immolated in a blaze of narrative futility, leaving behind only the faint scent of missed opportunity.
Segment Two: A Word in the Palm — Ghost Whispering for Beginners
Next up, Tony Leung Ka-fai stars in A Word in the Palm, a supernatural detective story about a fortune-teller (Leung) and his crystal-loving neighbor (Kelly Chen) helping a vengeful ghost resolve unfinished business. It’s the middle child of the anthology—the calm, sensible one who’s just happy to be here.
Leung, one of Hong Kong’s most respected actors, gives the role more gravitas than it deserves. He plays Ho, a psychic who can see ghosts, though apparently only those willing to explain themselves in slow, polite Cantonese. Together with Chen’s character, he investigates a haunting that unfolds with all the urgency of a mildly inconvenient traffic jam.
The ghost in question, Chan Siu-ting (Cherry Ngan), is a drowned schoolgirl seeking revenge on her sleazy swimming coach and his pregnant wife. It’s a story that should have dripped with tragedy and moral complexity. Instead, it’s about as frightening as a weather report.
Leung and Chen have chemistry—unfortunately, it’s the kind of chemistry that belongs in a mildly flirtatious insurance commercial. The scares are few, the pacing glacial, and the resolution—where the ghost simply agrees to move on after a bit of light conversation—feels like the paranormal equivalent of customer retention management.
At one point, a supposedly terrifying apparition drifts across the frame looking like a bored intern in a bedsheet. It’s hard to feel frightened when you half expect the ghost to pause and ask if you’ve completed your satisfaction survey.
Segment Three: Jing Zhe — The Villain-Hitter Strikes Out
Finally, we reach Jing Zhe, directed by Fruit Chan—a filmmaker known for his sharp social satire. This should be the knockout punch of the anthology, the one that justifies sitting through the previous hour of spectral yawns. Instead, it’s an aggressively confusing moral melodrama about vengeance, guilt, and motherly failure, dressed up in incense smoke and paper effigies.
Susan Shaw plays Chu, a “villain-hitter”—a traditional Hong Kong figure who smacks paper dolls with shoes to curse her clients’ enemies. It’s an occupation that sounds delightful on paper and looks ridiculous on screen. The sight of Shaw beating a cardboard effigy while mumbling curses might have been menacing in another film, but here it lands somewhere between tragic and vaguely therapeutic.
Enter Dada Chan as a mysterious young woman who wants four people cursed. Surprise! She’s a ghost (again). Turns out she was raped and murdered by three men, one of whom is—wait for it—Chu’s son.
It’s a setup that could have explored complicity and generational guilt. Instead, it plays like a soap opera written by someone who just discovered what ghosts are. As Chu realizes her involvement in her son’s crime, the movie spirals into chaotic symbolism and heavy-handed tragedy. Fruit Chan tries to channel Tales from the Crypt morality but ends up with something closer to Tales from the Confused.
When everyone finally dies in poetic retribution, you can’t even muster relief—just gratitude that the movie is almost over.
A Trilogy of Missed Opportunities
As a whole, Tales from the Dark 1 feels like a Halloween potluck where everyone brought leftovers. The three directors—Simon Yam, Lee Chi-ngai, and Fruit Chan—each bring distinct flavors, but they clash like ghosts at a karaoke bar. Yam’s segment is grimy but shallow, Lee’s is polished but dull, and Chan’s is ambitious but incoherent.
What’s missing from all three is tension. The scares are so restrained they might as well be on strike. The ghosts float in, mutter a few lines about revenge, and drift off without so much as a decent jump scare. Even the lighting seems apologetic, as if the cinematographer was afraid to wake the dead—or the audience.
The anthology’s tonal whiplash is impressive in its own right: one minute you’re watching a man blackmailing ghosts, the next you’re knee-deep in karmic vengeance, all underscored by music that can’t decide whether it’s tragic or just tired.
The Real Horror: Editing
At nearly two hours, Tales from the Dark 1 tests your endurance more than your nerves. Each story overstays its welcome by about fifteen minutes, which is a feat considering none of them feel like they’ve actually started. It’s like watching a haunted house tour where every door opens to reveal another queue.
The pacing is so uneven that by the time Jing Zhe finally builds to its bloody conclusion, you’ve emotionally flatlined. Even the ghosts seem exhausted, showing up out of obligation rather than malice.
Performances from the Living (and the Dead)
The cast, to their credit, give it their all. Tony Leung Ka-fai brings sincerity to dialogue that deserves hazard pay. Kelly Chen radiates charm in a film that forgot to be charming. Susan Shaw commits fully to her role as a guilt-ridden mother, and Simon Yam… well, he directs himself into an early grave.
But no amount of talent can save writing this disjointed. It’s as if each director was working off a different translation of Lilian Lee’s stories, then decided to glue them together using sheer confusion.
Verdict: Tales from the Dim
*Tales from the Dark 1* isn’t scary, it’s sleepy. It’s a horror anthology that confuses gloom with depth and ghosts with excuses. There are flashes of potential—especially in its exploration of guilt and superstition—but they’re buried under so much tonal inconsistency you start to envy the dead for their peace and quiet.
By the end, you don’t feel haunted—you feel tricked. And not in the fun Halloween way.
★☆☆☆☆ (1 out of 5)
Three directors, three ghosts, and not a single pulse between them. Tales from the Dark 1 proves that even the afterlife can suffer from poor direction and worse Wi-Fi. The only real mystery is how it spawned a sequel.
