Reviews

There is so much to analyze in this movie. It reminds me of watching David Lynch movies and pondering upon every detail afterwards. You can't help it.

For example, the huge skeleton they found in the cave was deformed. It had many fingers on its hands and was pinned to the wall by bones. It was conjured by monks to be trapped there but it was born "imperfect" - too large, too many fingers. It could not pass as one of us. Tis was a past vessel that had died. The second time we see a vessel is when the main actor watches the VHS tapes and sees another vessel conjured. This too is imperfect and has six finger on its hands, tears pieces of flesh from its body and paints the wall with its own blood as a means of communication. We later hear the girl telling the main actor how they had tried in the past but failed. The third conjured Empty Man has the main role in the film. He is perfect, five fingers on his hands, damaged only emotionally, not mentally or physically. He is the vessel conjured by meditation and a strong belief - the perfect Empty Man.

Also to be noted that the Tibetan belief is that all material belongings are useless. This resonates with the nihillistic belief of the followers of the Empty Man. They only go a step further and negate all existence.

Great flick. Will watch the director's work closely.

This is hands down the worst survival show I have started to watch. So you have these 14 guys that have absolutely no idea what they are doing. And you drop them onto this island where they bicker like teenagers until they run out of resources. Three of them struggle to kill a snake because they just have to prove to themselves that they are men. Three others try to start a fire by friction only to see a brighter one already made a fire by using his glasses. Then they decide they need to carry said fire to the beach, although they could just use the same glasses again. So they carry hot coals from the middle of the jungle when the real question was why start a fire in the forest. The scene in which they chop the snake using a machete although they have knives made me laugh. They hold the snake VERTICALLY and they hit it repeatedly with the short sword almost defacing the one that holds the dead reptile like a little girl would hold a dead umbilical cord. Then they eat it, although they HAVE enough food; they have been on the island for only a few hours, they are definitely NOT hungry and water is their main problem, not snake meat. And speaking of water, I drew great pleasure from seeing these 14 Americans mix ocean water with the last drinkable water they had, boil it and then spit it out screaming "THIS IS SALT WATER!" Three of them went to look for the beach, although all of them would have found it eventually. It took them 3-4 hours to get there, another 3-4 hours to get back into the middle of the jungle to tell the others they have found said beach, then GO BACK to the beach. Total wasted time: half a day. I face-palmed myself when the Army veteran drew a big "USA" in the sand and stood gloriously looking at the waves. No wonder the rest of the world hates the USA. The first episode concludes with the most annoying member of the group throwing up and violently convulsing at night. He must have drank the salt water or whatnot and they had to call for help and watch as he was thrown into a boat without fanfare and sailed off into the darkness. These men couldn't build a sand castle without setting it on fire and I'm pretty sure that's exactly why they have been chosen to go on that island.