Taiwanese horror film Incantation (咒) has passed another national milestone since its release in March, after making its way onto Netflix’s charts and becoming the platform’s most watched Taiwanese film.
The movie yesterday ranked fourth on Netflix’s top 10 list of non-English-language films, garnering the attention of gore lovers and horror aficionados around the world.
Netflix data showed that Incantation scared its way into the top 10 by accumulating up to 3.24 million hours of viewership during the week ending Sunday last week.
Photo courtesy of Activator Co Ltd via CNA
Third-party data collection service FlixPatrol said Incantation was Netflix’s eighth-most trending international film.
FlixPatrol said the movie was the platform’s top film in Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam, and the second-most attention-grabbing in Malaysia and the Philippines.
In Japan, the horror film’s mythical elements even encouraged famous celebrities, such as game designer Hideo Kojima, to help promote the movie to the country’s horror fans.
The film has also attracted considerable hype in South American countries such as Argentina, Chile and Colombia, FlixPatrol said, citing its Netflix’s top 10 listings in those countries.
Responding to Incantation’s international recognition and success on Netflix, the film’s director, Kevin Ko (柯孟融), said he was surprised and humbled.
“As a director, the achievement didn’t even cross my mind in my dreams,” Ko said. “I thought this would only happen in a parallel universe.”
Ko said that while the film was critically and financially successful in Taiwan, he was initially worried that its culture-specific horror elements would not be understood by viewers in other countries.
However, Ko said he realized that his worries were unnecessary after he saw how people from around the world wrote about the film on social media, saying that its unfamiliar plot elements added a sense of mysticism.
Ko said people should watch his film using headphones to get the most immersive horror experience.
Since its theatrical release in Taiwan, Incantation has raked in NT$170 million (US$5.68 million) at the domestic box office.
The film has accomplished several “firsts,” such as being the highest-grossing Taiwanese horror film and the nation’s first found-footage style horror movie.
Its mockumentary format has had fans and critics comparing it to the first commercially successful movie of that style, 1999’s Blair Witch Project, going as far as calling Incantation the Taiwanese equivalent of the US cult film.
With its characters’ incantation of “Hou ho xiu yi, si sei wu ma,” phonetically designed to be easily repeated by audiences, and its contorted spell-casting gesture aimed at sending chills down the spines of viewers, Incantation is streaming on Netflix in multiple languages.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
‘POOP ON STAGE’: The song, which talks about the reluctance to graduate and anxiety about a lack of job opportunities, resonated with many students’ feelings The original song Poop on Stage has been chosen as National Taiwan University’s (NTU) graduation song this year, sparking much debate regarding the song’s title and content, which describes students’ anxiety about post-graduation unemployment. The title, Shang Tai Da Bian (上台大便), is a play on words that literally means “go on stage to poop.” The first three characters, shang tai da (上台大), also mean “to attend NTU,” as “Taida” is a common abbreviation for the university. The last character, bian (便), can mean “convenient” or “then,” but is more commonly associated with defecation. The lyrics of the song describe students’ reluctance to graduate and
RSS