Ghosts and the Machines 29
Ghosts and the Machines: Spectres of the Technological Revolution Katarzyna Ancuta
ABSTRACT
In popular imagination, ghosts, or the spirits of the departed have always existed as traces of the past. But today, like anything else in this world, if they want to survive they need to adjust to the present, if not future. Nowhere is this more visible than in contemporary Asian horror cinema, perhaps to a certain extent also because unlike in the rationally repressive west, many Asian cultures do not rush to deny spiritualism, but rather negotiate the ways in which spiritual experiences can apply to media and technology-infused global societies. This article draws on the need to exame the ways new media and visual technologies affect the representation of ghosts in contemporary Asian horror film, in effect producing a new variety of spirits.These new spirits materialise within photographic and video images, transmit themselves through television frequency waves, become embedded in an electronic code, scramble the signal of video surveillance cameras, clone themselves using cellular technologies, replicate through text messages and emails, hack computer systems and infect the cyberspace better than any computer viruses known to man. No longer wrapped in proverbial bedsheets and clinking chains, these new ghosts call for a redefinition of certain concepts that Gothic and Horror have learnt to take for granted.
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One of the legacies of Euro-centric rationalism and utilitarian belief in the unquestionable supremacy of science and reason has been the representation of progress as a technological triumph over spiritualism and superstition. Based on these grounds, the man-made dichotomies of tradition and modernity, nature and culture, wilderness and civilisation etc., shaped the Western way of life for years to come. The stubbornness with which Asian societies refused to moderate reality according to the said binaries and persisted to uphold their “irrational” attitudes to life resulted in adding one more opposition to the existing paradigm: East and West. Within this framework, Eastern aesthetics and philosophies, Asian devotion to tradition and appreciation of nature were, thus, for many years presented as nothing but apparent manifestations of backwardness. Today, as the encroaching rationalisation of the universe has pushed the supernatural to the margins of acceptability in Europe and America, it may be refreshing to notice that the Asian continent still remains filled with pockets 30 Asian Journal of Literature, Culture and Society of resistance to that kind of reasoning. But if the existence of the supernatural is rarely questioned in contemporary Asia, where tradition and superstition go hand in hand with advanced technology and extreme consumerism, it is because Asian societies do not seem to feel the need to question or marginalise the supernatural, other than the compliance with this, not inherently Asian, demand for rationalisation, which, bearing in mind Asia’s colonial history, did not always work to its benefit in the past. The increasing interest of the international film markets in Asian horror film productions in the last decade has made it possible (and popular) to speak of the global horror community. But the acknowledgment of the local Asian film industries does not merely pose a potential challenge to Hollywood’s hegemony in the world of cinematic horror. Perhaps the most important result of this kind of globalisation of horror is the fact that it forces us to reconsider all the central concepts of the genre we have got used to taking for granted. One such concept that seems to urgently require our attention is the idea of a ghost. While it is hard to imagine the existence of Gothic or Horror without ghosts in general, most critics agree that contemporary horror film does not necessarily need to follow a supernatural plot. However, when we look at East Asian and South East Asian horror films (exemplified in this research by Japanese, South Korean, HK, Thai, Singaporean, Taiwanese and Chinese productions), it is difficult not to notice that a great majority of all the films constituting the horror genre in Asia are ghost stories. In fact, it may be worth mentioning that some Asian languages, like Thai for instance, have no separate word to describe the horror genre. Horror movies in Thai are simply called “ghost movies,” nung pee, which makes it rather difficult to classify as horror any film that does not feature a strongly supernatural plot. This is not to say, however, that Asian ghost movies resemble cinematic ghost stories standardised by Hollywood models. In fact, this is exactly why they both succeed and fail with general international audiences expecting to find readily recognisable American-made patterns Asian ghosts seem to be so reluctant to adjust to. If traditionally ghosts can be described as the spirits of the deceased, in Asian movies they are almost always completely anthropomorphized, as a consequence of Asian popular beliefs and ancestor worship rites linking the dead with their human form (frequently through pictures and photographs). The human-like representation of the dead in their afterlife is a common and cross-cultural pattern, as observed by Peter Berta in “Afterlife in Cross- Cultural Perspective,” who argues that “individuals essentially perceive death Ghosts and the Machines 31
and afterlife on the pattern of their life in this world, by the projection of their anthropomorphic categories and relations” (1), and believes that the said practice is a necessary result of death being treated as an empirical taboo in many cultures. Berta remarks that the concept of anthropomorphizing the afterlife can be found in practically all religious teachings (2), as exemplified by the practice of placing favourite belongings of the dead person with the body to be used in the other world (2). At the same time, however, the survivors “rationalize” their construction of death and the afterlife through a juxtaposition of realistic and symbolic imagery used to depict the difference between the living and the dead and their respective “living” habits. For instance, if the dead are supposed to consume food similarly to humans, they are frequently expected to feed on the steam or the smoke of the offerings rather than enjoy the actual meal. According to Berta, such a dualistic construction of the death concept (through anthropomorphizing and rationalization) “(partially) alleviates the empirical taboo of death, and makes it meaningful” (1). The need to construct the image of the afterlife as the mirror image of this world can obviously be seen as a way of dealing with grief after the passing away of one’s loved ones, but also as a method to ease one’s general fear of death. One “practical” answer to that need was the appearance of spectral photography in the 19th century. In his article on spirit photography, Louis Kaplan speaks of “the survivors’ need to ‘people the world’ with […] ghostly phenomena and maintain a connection with ancestors after their departure from earth” (2), which he sees as responsible for the fact that the relatives frequently vouched for the authenticity of the images even after the photographs had already been exposed as fakes. Similarly, in his paper on death and photography in 19th century America, Dan Meinwald situates 19th century spirit photography in the context of spiritualism, described by him as a belief that formulated a philosophic or even a religious foundation for the denial of death by seeking a scientific, empirically verifiable proof for the existence of spiritual afterlife (“The Afterlife” online). Discussing three famous cases of 19th century spirit photographers that all led to scandalous trials ending with an exposure of fraud, William Mumler in America, Frederick Hudson in England and Édouard Buguet in France, Dan Meinwald points to the visible differences in the photographic representation of the materialised spirits, which seem to be consistent with the expectations of a given society. And so while American spirits tended to be recognisably human, if a bit faded and transparent, English ghosts were usually shrouded in folds of ectoplasmic vapours and less substantial, 32 Asian Journal of Literature, Culture and Society
while the French ones seemed an odd mixture of the two. In all the cases, the spiritual figures were undeniably anthropomorphic in their shape, making it all the easier for the bereaved to recognise their late relatives in the vague impression on the photograph (“The Afterlife” online). Interestingly enough, Western celluloid ghosts tend to follow a similar pattern when it comes to their visual representation, strengthened by the descriptions derived from the works of the 19th century ghost story masters. While retaining a hint of a human-like posture about them, they are most likely to be represented as lacking substance, semi-transparent, dark or luminescent entities always ready to disintegrate into thousands of minuscule particles and be blown around by the wind. Created solely for the purpose of titillating their rational audiences, these kinds of ghosts seem to be expiating their very existence, remaining vague and immaterial enough to be taken for an illusion, should the need arise. If we attempt to read a ghost figure in semiotic terms then, using classic Peircean terminology, we could classify these kinds of ghosts as indicators or indices. According to Peirce, indices are signs that “show something about things on account of their being physically connected with them” (“What is a sign” §3 online). In practice, this can explain why Victorian and, consequently, Hollywood ghosts are frequently indicated rather than represented by a gust of wind, a sudden drop in temperature, a mist or a manifestation of ectoplasm. Contrary to that, on a par with beasts and monsters, Asian spirits seem to have retained their iconicity. Peirce maintains that icons, or likenesses “convey ideas of the things they represent simply by imitating them” (“What is a sign” §3 online), regardless of whether the imitated objects actually exist or not. Asian spirits have persistently been presented as the likenesses of the living and by the nature of imitation became associated with the human kind. One very good example of that can be the traditional Chinese perception of the afterlife, in which the deceased person is divided into his/her heavenly and earthly aspects. In his article on “Death and Transformation in Classical Daoism,” Roger Ames describes this process in more detail. According to the traditional belief, the heavenly or spiritual element (hun) departs the body at the moment of death, while the earthly part (po) lingers in the vicinity of the corpse and its burial place leading a life very much like our own. To prevent the po of their ancestors from turning mischievous, the remaining family members make sure it does not lack anything it might need to lead a comfortable life after death. In practical terms this translates into making regular offerings to the spirit, furnishing the tombs of the ancestors with anything their spirits might possibly need or desire, and burning paper Ghosts and the Machines 33
money to make sure the dead ancestors remain prosperous and can pay their taxes in the afterlife (61). Similarly, in beliefs springing from Buddhist thought, spirits are expected to retain their human-like characteristics, since they represent, in a way, the earthly attachments the soul is unwilling to give up. In his article on “Death and Enlightenment: The Therapeutic Psychology ofThe Tibetan Book of the Dead,” Robert Wicks explains that “[t]he dead person can choose either to become enlightened by giving up his or her “unconscious tendencies” that have been the cause of suffering, or the person can choose to remain bonded to those dispositions and be fated to circle once more through the patterns of his/her past existence” (71-72). A spirit that decides to pursue revenge, for instance, instead of giving up its earthly emotions cannot move on to be reborn and remains in what Ikeda Daisaku calls “intermediate existence” - existence between death and rebirth (89). In Unlocking the Mysteries of Birth and Death: Buddhism in the Contemporary World, Ikeda Daisaku remarks that “[a]ccording to the Buddhist view, life is eternal. It is believed to undergo successive incarnations, so that death is thought to be not so much the cessation of an existence as the beginning of a new one” (84). Unable to let go of its attachments, the spirit remains entrapped in what the Buddhists associate with “the four evil ways:” Hell, Hunger, Animality and Anger (Daisaku 119-120). In her article “Crossing the Gate of Death in Chinese Buddhist Culture,” Yutang Lin is even more precise when she observes that “[t]o Buddhists who are keenly aware of impermanence, living is concurrent with dying” (3). As a result of this, she maintains, the human soul is “helplessly engulfed in transmigration within the six realms of suffering. These six realms are: heavens, asuras, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hells” (2). With the assumption that life and death are in fact one and the same process, the spirits, thus, quite logically, retain their anthropomorphic form for as long as it takes them to realise they should renounce their previous life and begin a new one. As a consequence of these and similar beliefs, Asian ghosts are frequently portrayed in horror movies as completely indistinguishable from the living and the films themselves tend to embrace plots of misidentification. To cite a few examples, the Japanese Kaidan or Yotsuya Kaidan movies are classic stories featuring wronged dead wives waiting patiently for their husbands who return to them unsuspecting their spouses have become vengeful spirits. The same motif can be found in the Thai Nang Nak story, where the ghost of the faithful wife brings destruction to anyone attempting to separate her from her husband. In a HK film, Haunted Office, ghostly office 34 Asian Journal of Literature, Culture and Society
workers mingle with their living colleagues on a daily basis; in a Thai film Dorm, the ghost of little Vichien still repeats the same class at school; and in a Korean ghost movie R-Point, spectral soldiers refuse to surrender even if the wars keep on changing. The fact that Asian spirits cannot be immediately distinguished from ordinary humans allows for a multiplicity of film plots involving friendly and romantic relationships between the living and the dead (Esprit D’Amour, Tiramisu, Rouge). The conviction that ghosts are the spitting image of the living is so strong that when in My Honeymoon with a Vampire a newly-wed wife returns to her honeymoon suite only to find her husband in bed with a scantily-clad lady she immediately ceases accusing him of any infidelity when the girl admits: “it’s not what you think it is, I’m a ghost.” Obviously, it would be impossible to claim that the anthropomorphic image of the ghost is totally alien to Western horror cinema, although one has to admit that this kind of representation has never been particularly popular in Hollywood and Hollywood-inspired films. Even if we could suggest that the relatively recent and somewhat hybrid film productions (bearing in mind the personal background of the directors), The Sixth Sense or The Others, owe large part of their success to their introduction of the anthropomorphic image of the ghost, their novelty at the time they were made lied mostly in presenting the narrative from the perspective of the spirit. Still, once the final scenes of those films established the spectral identity of the main characters the audience was given a chance to re-visit a number of crucial scenes and see for themselves that the ghosts had in fact been always invisible to the human eyes. As a result of those final explanations, the films in question did not truly reject the Hollywood-set standards regarding the cinematic representation of ghosts and spirits as invisible or at least transparent, vaporous or somehow ectoplasmic in nature (with the notable exception of the 1980s when they tended to abound in latex). Contrary to that, the apparent “fleshiness” of Asian spirits is accepted as nothing out of the ordinary and requires no additional explanation. Having said all that, it becomes easy to see that Asian ghosts are in for a radical change. The modern yet traditional, materialistic yet spiritual Asian way of life has already resulted in a certain reorganising of the supernatural world, as seen in popular beliefs and in contemporary horror movies, technologically upgrading the paranormal phenomena and, ironically, bringing them closer than ever to legitimate science. As the spirits of the deceased, ghosts have traditionally been associated with funerary rites, burial places and ancestral remains. They have been expected to materialise in the Ghosts and the Machines 35
vicinity of the corpse or at the place of death, particularly violent death. Recently, however, Asian spirits seem to have undergone a technological transformation. Ghosts have been seen materialising within photographs in the Japanese Ringu and JuOn movies, Thai Shutter, Korean R-Point or Taiwanese Silk, creating interference in television (Ringu, JuOn) and radio waves (R-Point, Antarctic Journal), being captured on surveillance cameras (JuOn, Kairo, Ghost System), sent to mobile phones as a text (Phobia) or video-message (One Missed Call), infecting computer systems (Ghost System), dialing themselves up through the internet modem (Kairo) and even haunting a computer trash bin (Re-Cycle). This shift in horror film plots to media and technology seems to redefine the nature of ghosts. Ghosts can no longer be seen as fully ectoplasmic, vaporous, fleshy or organic in any sense since, at least at the point of their materialisation, they have to be considered in terms of an electronic impulse, a code sequence, a frequency, a sound wave etc., and all of them fractal/chaotic in nature. If it begins to seem that talking about ghosts in today’s cinema requires more knowledge of advanced physics than ever, it may be interesting to notice that while on the surface of it hard science has always denied the existence of the supernatural, at the same time many scientific discoveries and inventions initially met with a dose of scepticism comparable to that usually reserved for the paranormal. It is also worth mentioning that practically every medium that could be used to record scientific evidence normally inaccessible to the human senses has also been used to document the existence of the supernatural. And so, scientific photography (e.g. microscopic photography) evolved parallel to spectral photography, both of them initially struggling for respectability; recording ultrasonic sounds and measuring the electromagnetic field have both been utilised in scientific and paranormal investigation. Ghosts have always been perceived as bringing chaos and disorder to the world of the living. Today this quality seems to have found its scientific counterpart in Chaos Theory and the disciplines that have already embraced it: contemporary mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, ecology, meteorology, economics and medicine. This relationship of the supernatural with the scientific has occasionally made it to Western horror movies, to quote Poltergeist, or White Noise as examples. Still, while the movies in question utilise the scientific aspect of the paranormal investigation in their plots, they also make a point that the paranormal goes way beyond the scientific, and because of that, the “science” as described in the films should not be taken too seriously. On the contrary, most Asian ghost movies treat the scientific/technological upgrading of the spirits as natural and the 36 Asian Journal of Literature, Culture and Society
explanation of ghosts in terms of electronic discharges, video messages or viruses (both organic and digital) are nothing out of the usual. Perhaps the most haunting image of such a techno-spiritual world can be found in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Kairo. Kairo proposes a model that explains the spiritual, or supernatural existence through a semi-scientific theory of random attraction and unbearable loneliness. The self-dialing Internet website appearing on accidental computer screens with a question “have you ever seen a ghost?” is used as an excuse to create a ghost story plot structured around the models of chaotic attractors and turbulences. On a micro level, the dynamics of chaos in Kairo is demonstrated on a computer simulation model recreating the movement of the universe through a conjunction of particles simultaneously attracted to and repelled by one another. Orbiting around the vacuum, randomly pulled and pushed away at the same time, the particles remain isolated from the universe they, in fact, create. The suggestion that the model somehow depicts the structure of the afterlife gives a measure of scientific credibility to what already seemed obvious to our ancestors, that ghosts are in fact an integral part of a chaotic system. The only difference is that today chaos has become much less a question of theology than physics. It goes without saying that today’s ghosts have come a long way from wearing bed sheets and clinking metal chains (even if, technically speaking, Asian ghosts never really fitted that description). In Europe or America ghosts have always hovered on the fringes of acceptability, their existence never officially acknowledged. They were doomed to appear in crumbling castles, desolate mansions or forgotten family tombs while, ironically, shopping malls opened their doors to zombies. In many parts of Asia the popular belief in the supernatural is almost palpable, making it easy for ghosts to invade hi-rise office towers, multi-storey condominia and luxurious department stores. If European ghosts haunt deserted detached houses, Asian ghosts tend to “live” in elevators and huge ventilation shafts of large buildings. They commute to work using public transport and utilise every possible technological device known to man because, after all, as iconic signs, they are nothing but the likenesses of humans. One potential explanation of this techno-friendly image of contemporary Asian spirits can be the fact that modern-day technology is obviously seen as a normalising factor in the stories. To be successful, ghost stories must be believable and so set in the contemporary reality known to the audience. And since the audience itself circulates “real-life” stories of ghosts commuting by skytrains, haunting computers and communicating by mobile phones, the film plots are nothing but a reflection of those beliefs. On another level, it is Ghosts and the Machines 37
also worth noticing that to a certain extent all the mentioned technological inventions can be seen as taking over the function traditionally played by a common mirror in ghost-related folklore, popular beliefs and superstitions. Mirrors feature in many Asian mythologies, frequently described as the gateway to chaos, or to the land of the dead, always threatening they may spill their contents and pollute the world of the living. In the foreword to Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness, John Briggs and F. David Peat recount an ancient Chinese legend in which the mirror people invaded the earth bringing about chaos and destruction (13). According to The Interpretation of Dreams in Chinese Culture, looking into a mirror in one’s dream is supposed to be an omen of coming death (Fang, Zhang 99). Chinese feng shui specialists warn us against placing mirrors directly in front of our beds claiming it as potentially harmful for our Ch’i. In Asian popular beliefs and local necromantic customs mirrors are frequently used to communicate with the spirits of the dead, to exorcise the possessed or to bring the spirits back to the land of the living. Not surprisingly, many Asian horror films exploit the image of the ghost in the mirror (Into the Mirror, Mirror). Asian spirits use mirrors to communicate with the living, as channels of materialisation and as an instrument of destruction (interestingly some spirits seem to have the ability to hurt and even kill the living through the mirror, just as humans use mirrors to destroy the spirits). Similarly humans do not seem to mind the obvious contradiction utilising mirrors to invoke the spirits and as an instrument of protection against them. Chinese octagonal mirrors placed outside the house to keep the spirits out have made a truly international career over the years and can be found practically everywhere in Asia bought and displayed even by non-believers. But if mirrors can be seen as reflecting surfaces, the same can be said about glossy photographs, camera lenses, TV or computer screens and LCD displays of hi-tech mobile phones. And if we claim that mirrors are the gateways to illusory worlds, can we not appropriate this metaphor to describe photography, radio, TV or the Internet? Quite consequently, the mentioned dual aspect of mirrors – a communication channel/locus of materialisation and an instrument of protection/weapon – has also been reflected by technology. Perhaps the most obvious example here can be visual recording technologies – from photography to video recording. The idea that photography, and by extension any form of video recording, can supposedly capture the soul of a living person is relatively common in many cultures of the world. When Salman Rushdie, for instance, recalls the real-life incident 38 Asian Journal of Literature, Culture and Society
he later fictionalised inMidnight’s Children, in which his grandmother hit the photographer with his own camera in an act of self-defence against having part of her essence stored in his box, he does not as much castigate the old woman for her backwardness but rather uses the example to strengthen his conviction that “[t]here is something predatory about all photography” (Step Accross This Line 113). He concludes: “What the photographer gained, the subject lost; cameras, like fear, ate the soul” (113). Taking this idea further, we are not completely surprised to find out that photography is frequently expected to capture the spirits of the dead. In the Buddhist context, if a soul were to be captured within a photograph this fact would interfere with its transmigration and subsequent rebirth. The distrust with which photographic cameras and similar recording instruments originally met in many Asian cultures was nothing but a manifestation of that belief. This, on the one hand, brings us back to the argument on spectral photography, where photography is seen as prolonging people’s existence in a way by supposedly retaining their spiritual aspect in this world. On the other hand, the capturing of the spirit in a photograph or on film/tape can also have a protective quality. Both of these ideas are frequently utilised in Asian horror films. Captured spirits can be seen and avoided if necessary (Shutter, Silk) but they can also be imprisoned and destroyed (Park, Possessed, Troublesome Night series). As a reworking of the same theme, Peter Chan’s Going Home segment of Three (HK) shows us spirits visiting an old closed- down photographer’s shop to take a family photograph on the way out of this world. Also, in many Thai (or HK/Thai) films, such as Devil Eye, The House, The Victim or even to a certain extent Shutter we can see a connection between taking a picture of a dead person, a person in distress, or a ghost and becoming bound with their vengeful spirits afterwards. While it may be debatable to what extent contemporary horror films fuel popular beliefs in the supernatural and the other way round in Asia, the relationship of ghosts with media and technology is very visible in Asian everyday life. Even if we exclude the more extreme and somewhat underground instances of utilising photography and video recordings for the sake of exorcisms and black magic rituals, recording images has become an inherent part of modern funerary rites and ancestor worship. Traditional wooden or stone name plaques placed on ancestral altars have been replaced by a display of framed photographs; pictures and recordings are occasionally burnt as offerings and the copious amounts of paper money are today accompanied by paper DVD players, paper computers and paper mobile phones to make sure the spirits are not technologically challenged in the Ghosts and the Machines 39
afterlife. In Thailand, one of the common methods of appeasing the dead and pacifying their spirits is through an offering of movies projected to the invisible audience on large screens near temples and graveyards. There is no denying that the popular representation of ghosts, as exemplified in everyday beliefs and horror movies, is changing. With the globalisation of the horror market and the growing awareness of the intricate network of intertextualities in contemporary horror film worldwide we can no longer avoid questioning the very core characteristics of the genre, whose structures appear to be crumbling in front of our eyes. If the appeal of horror, to a large extent lies in a balanced relationship between originality and repetition, where the unfamiliar has become very familiar over the years, now is the time to revisit, and perhaps redefine, central concepts and ideas crucial for the genre. Ghosts and spirits have been present in folklore and beliefs of practically every culture and yet until now most mainstream, i.e. Western-influenced Gothic and Horror texts seem to have been promoting a rather Anglo-Saxon image of the afterlife. The insistence of Hollywood to remake every potentially interesting Asian ghost story in the recent years has already led to the introduction of the Japanese onryo character (a vengeful female spirit with long black hair frequently covering her face) to the pantheon of internationally-recognised horror monsters. But if these films are ever to become more than unsuccessful copies of their Asian originals, we need to understand the nature of Eastern spirituality rather than simply cut and paste whichever elements seem desirable at the moment. Still, while the traditional ghost lore of various Asian cultures will, for obvious reasons, always seem slightly unusual to Western eyes, the recent technological upgrading of the images of the afterlife creates a wonderful opportunity to bridge the gap created by the incompatibility of cultural traditions. At the moment, however, this remains an area yet to be explored.
References:
Ames, Roger T. “Death and Transformation in Classical Daoism.” Death and Philosophy. Eds. Jeff Malpas and Robert C. Solomon. London & NY: Routledge, 2003: 57-70. Berta, Peter. “Afterlife in Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Encyclopedia of Death and Dying. 01 November 2007.
Briggs, John and F. David Peat. Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness. New York: Perennial Library, 1990. Daisaku, Ikeda. Unlocking the Mysteries of Birth and Death: Buddhism in the Contemporary World. London: Warner Books, c1988, 1994. Fang, Jing Pei, Zhang Juwen. The Interpretation of Dreams in Chinese Culture. Trumbull, CT: Weatherhill, 2000. Kaplan, Louis. “Where the Paranoid Meets the Paranormal: Speculations of Spirit Photography.” FindArticles. Art Journal. Fall 2003. 02 November 2007.
Filmography:
Antarctic Journal. Namgeuk-ilgi. Dir. Pil-sung Yim. 2005. Devil Eye. Ngo chan hai gin diy gwai. Dir. Man Kei Chin. 2001. Dorm. Dek Hor. Dir. Songyos Sugmakanan. 2006. Esprit D’Amour. Yam yeung choh. Dir. Ringo Lam. 1983. Ghost System. Gosuto shisutemu. Dir. Toshikazu Nagae. 2002. Going Home. Episode of Three, Saam gaang. Dir. Peter Chan. 2002. Haunted Office. Office yauh gwai. Dir. Marco Mak. 2002. Ghosts and the Machines 41
House, The. Baan Pee Sing. Dir. Monthon Arayangkoon. 2007. Into the Mirror. Geoul sokeuro. Dir. Sung-ho Kim. 2003. JuOn. Dir. Takashi Shimizu. 2003. Kaidan. Dir. Masaki Kobayashi. 1964. Kairo. Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa. 2001. Mirror. Ku jing gwai tan. Dir. Ah Gan. 1999. My Honeymoon with a Vampire. Dir. Law Man Dick. 2003. Nang Nak. Dir. Nonzee Nimibutr. 1999. One Missed Call. Chakushin ari. Dir. Takashi Miike. 2003. Others, The. Dir. Alejandro Amenabar. 2001. Park, The. Chow lok yuen. Dir. Wai-keung Lau. 2003. Phobia. 4 Prang. Dir. Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom, Phavee Purijidpanya and Youngyut Tongkontund. 2008. Poltergeist. Dir. Tobe Hooper. 1982. Possessed. Dir. Billy Chung Siu Hung. 2002 Re-cycle. Gwai wik. Dir. Oxide and Danny Pang. 2006. Ringu. Dir. Hideo Nakata. 1998. Rouge. Yin ji kau. Dir. Stanley Kwan. 1987. R-Point. Dir. Su-chang Kong. 2004. Screen, The. Pee Jan Nang A Tan Paakamjanod. Dir. Songsak Mongkoltong. 2007. Shutter. Dir. Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom. 2004. Silk. Guisi. Dir. Chao-Bin Su. 2006. Sixth Sense, The. Dir. M. Night Shyamalan. 1999. Tiramisu. Luen oi hang sing. Dir. Dante Lam. 2002. Troublesome Night series. Various Directors. 20 episodes. 1997-2003. Victim, The. Pee Kon Pen. Dir. Monthon Arayangkoon. 2006. White Noise. Dir. Geoffrey Sax. 2005. Yotsuya Kaidan. Dir. Shiro Toyoda. 1966.