All In The Dim Cold Night is a film of two halves. The first part is pure tragedy, heaping misery upon misery onto poor Tsio-O (Meng Chin), pretty daughter of Old Tu (Chung-Lien Chou). When Lord Chao (Yang Yueh) meets the young woman one night, he is smitten; returning soon after, he seduces Tsio-O, offering to make her his wife. However, when Chao gets a better offer -- the hand in marriage of the only daughter of a very wealthy man -- he reneges on his promise to Tsio-O. As if jilting her isn't bad enough, he also denies being the father of her unborn child.
When the baby finally arrives, Old Tu tries to get rid of it by dumping it outside in the 'cold dim night'. Tsio-O finds her child and goes to the home of Lord Chao to try and get him to act responsibly, but he refuses to see her. In the morning, Tsio-O is found frozen clutching her dead baby. It's a wonderfully downbeat first act, but unfortunately the second half, in which Tsio-O's ghost takes revenge, isn't quite as effective. Illuminated by a green light and gliding silently about, the ghost is fairly cool, but the plot hereon is wholly predictable and repetitive, Tsio-O's creepy shenanigans soon becoming tedious. I don't think my enjoyment of the film was helped by awful picture quality and often illegible subtitles, but even cutting it some slack for these reasons, I cannot rate the film as a whole any higher than 5/10 (7/10 for the fist half and 3/10 for the second half).
When the baby finally arrives, Old Tu tries to get rid of it by dumping it outside in the 'cold dim night'. Tsio-O finds her child and goes to the home of Lord Chao to try and get him to act responsibly, but he refuses to see her. In the morning, Tsio-O is found frozen clutching her dead baby. It's a wonderfully downbeat first act, but unfortunately the second half, in which Tsio-O's ghost takes revenge, isn't quite as effective. Illuminated by a green light and gliding silently about, the ghost is fairly cool, but the plot hereon is wholly predictable and repetitive, Tsio-O's creepy shenanigans soon becoming tedious. I don't think my enjoyment of the film was helped by awful picture quality and often illegible subtitles, but even cutting it some slack for these reasons, I cannot rate the film as a whole any higher than 5/10 (7/10 for the fist half and 3/10 for the second half).
