THE LIVING DEAD: DON'T TURN ON THE LIGHT IF YOU WANT TO LIVE

 

The Living Dead (2019) Official Poster (image: WeTV)

Combining thrilling fantasy and horror, The Living Dead achieved a high rating on the iQIYI streaming platform while simultaneously treating fans’ yearning for the drama The Untamed.

After success with The Untamed, in August 2019, the official Weibo account for The Untamed announced a spin-off film entitled ‘The Living Dead.’ This film was directed by Qiu Zhong Wei, unlike The Untamed, which Steve Cheng and Chan Ka Lam directed. The Living Dead (Chen Qing Ling Zhi Shen Hun) was aired on November 7, 2019.

The Living Dead focuses on the adventures of Wen Ning (Yu Bin), the ghost general, and Lan Sizhui (Zheng Fan Xing) in solving the mystery of ghost terror in FuFeng, previously known as the ‘City That Never Turns Dark.’ But because of the mystery of death and the terror of ghosts that are usually called ‘Lit Lamp Murderer,’ the townspeople don’t dare to turn on the lights at night. This is because the person who turns on the light will be found dead the next day.

The character development in this movie has changed significantly from the drama The Untamed. In the drama, Wen Ning is portrayed as innocent, shy, unable to socialize, yet brave and caring. But in the movie, Wen Ning becomes more confident, mature, courageous, has his own thoughts, and even leads the problem-solving. The change may have intended to show Wen Ning’s more mature character. However, some audiences might be confused since the change process is not shown.

Apart from the character development, the CGI in this movie is also average. Sometimes it looks good, but sometimes it also looks unnatural. But the shortcomings in the CGI effect can be saved by the plot of this movie. The story is simple but packed coherently and neatly, making the audience curious about what will happen next.

Despite of the character development and CGI, this film still has a high rating on iQIYI, with a rating of 9.3/10. In addition, this film also received a pretty good rating on several rating websites, namely 7.9 on MyDramaList, 6.5/10 on WeTV, and 6.3/10 on IMDb.

The Living Dead can be watched on several streaming platforms: iQIYI, Viki, and WeTV.