20 years ago, a mass suicide took place in the Yang house and the entire family, except for one member, hung themselves to death. In present time, relative James inherits the house and moves in there with his girlfriend Yo. They invite a couple of their friends Yi-Chen and Ah-Tseng to stay over for one night, and shortly after their friends start to act weird. Yi-Chen starts showing up every night in the house at midnight, and Ah-Tseng is found dead from hanging. James and Yo soon finds out that the family's fortune came from that they raised child ghosts, something that brought them great fortune but at the same time brought great doom as well.
The Heirloom looks visually fantastic and I got the same feeling as when I watched A Tale of Two Sisters for the first time. Not that they have anything in common story-wise, but that they look so good with all the colour combinations and everything that it's absolutely jaw-dropping. I guess my expectations were a bit too high to begin with as I had read some positive things about this movie, and when I turned it on, it looked a hundred percent creepy, yet very beautiful. I was hoping for it to delivers some real mind-bending horror and be scary, but even if it had this eerie feeling to it the movie throughout, it was never really as scary as one would've hoped for.
I of course wish that it would've been a lot scarier, but considering all the other things it has to offer, it still makes a great movie. The story itself is quite original, and actually really freaky when thinking about it. This Yang family use to raise child ghosts for generations, something that brought them great fortune and luck at first. Later on though things started to go wrong, and most of the time when someone in the family had a baby, it was always something wrong with that baby. The last baby that the family had and that didn't have anything wrong with it was James, the same James that got to inherit the huge estate.
 
I don't wanna give away too much of the plot or what happens since then there would be no reason for you to watch it. Let's just say that even if it's not super scary, it worth to watch just because of the great story. Other than that, it is well worth watching for the directing and the photography as well. Another thing that is a great plus was that the movie had a really good tempo. We get introduced to the characters rather quickly and shortly after that, strange supernatural things start to happen. Even if these things never really deliver any proper horror, at least there are things happening which makes it interesting. A very short time after that, they turn on the creepiness and it stays there till the end.
The more the story develops, the more creepy and bizarre things get, something that makes it more interesting and you can't actually wait to see what will happen next. I found this to be one of the greatest things with The Heirloom, that it kinda draws you in, makes you stay interested, and never bores you or really slows down too much. The atmosphere is great, and watching this late at night alone in a dark room will make it even more effective. The house itself is huge and has a really creepy feel to it, and the movie manages to be quite mysterious and suspenseful as well.
When it comes to acting it's for the most pretty good. Terri Kwan who plays Yo, James girlfriend, stands out a little more than the rest and delivers a great performance. Only complaint when it comes to acting is about Jason Chang who plays James. I don't want to say that he's all bad, but he's not very belivable and it could've been much better. But in the end, he doesn't ruin the movie or make a terrible performance, it's just that he felt a bit one dimensional and stiff, although it's not a big thing really. Great score consisting of nice piano music among other things that adds to the creepy atmosphere, is nice to listen to and works as good background music as well.
When finished watching the movie, I must admit I was a little bit disappointed. I expected too much horror, something that the movie never delivered. But when I thought about it later, full-on horror was never really needed. It's creepy and eerie from beginning to end, and has a story that is quite bizarre to describe it at best. The acting is ok, so is the score, and The Heirloom is worth watching just because of that it looks absolutely fantastic. I really hope there will be more beautiful movies like this coming out of Taiwan in the near future. Recommended.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Leste Chen
WRITING CREDITS: Dorian Li
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Terri Kwan, Jason Chang, Chang Yu Cheng
COUNTRY: Taiwan
RUNTIME: 104 min
RATING: 8/10
Heirloom, The Website/IMDB Click here
Heirloom, The Trailer Click here
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