Detention (2019)
“The impact of Detention outpaces the confines of its technical skill.”
Title: Detention (2019) / Traditional Chinese: 返校
Director: John Hsu 👨🏻🇹🇼
Writers: John Hsu 👨🏻🇹🇼, Fu Kai-ling 👩🏻🇹🇼, and Chien Shih-keng 👨🏻🇹🇼 based on the video game by Yao Shun-ting 👨🏻🇹🇼
Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸
—MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD—
Technical: 3.75/5
Consider Taiwan: a small island off the coast of China with a population of 24 million. A female president leads the democratic government; citizens enjoy universal healthcare; and same-sex couples can legally marry.
You probably wouldn’t guess that a few decades ago, these same residents lived under the terrifying weight of martial law. But during this 38-year period known as the White Terror, the Kuomintang (KMT) party massacred thousands of its own citizens and imprisoned about 140,000 for being “political dissidents.”
In John Hsu’s feature debut, Detention implores its viewers to never forget this dark past. Based on a video game by Red Candle, Hsu’s film borrows much from the source material, including its use of horror and mystery to impart lessons to a younger generation who may have only ever known democracy.
By its own cinematic chops, Detention feels competent, especially considering how video game adaptations can often be mediocre. Effective art direction and moody colors paint a strong point of view, while Detention’s allegory to real-world atrocities provide some genuinely moving moments. But the narrative structure holding it together unfortunately falls short.
In the original game, Detention allowed players to control both Fang Rui-xin (Gingle Wang) and her classmate Wei Zhong-ting (Tseng Ching-hua). Hsu similarly switches between their perspectives in his movie, while also toggling flashbacks and multiple universes, lending a herky-jerky pace that struggles to find its groove.
Its golden core does shine through such imperfections, though. Detention’s most powerful asset lies in its message that democracy isn’t a given—that freedom is worth fighting for, even dying for. Without context, this could sound trite. But given the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s increasing threat to democracy in the region, this call to action takes on real poignancy. I only wish the film’s execution kept pace with its larger ambitions.
Gender: 3.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? NOPE
Detention stars Fang, an 18-year-old student trapped in a monster-filled hellscape. Fellow uniformed classmates and teachers swirl about as zombified avatars acting out a gruesome play, and only Wei from the grade below shares her sentience, both of them similarly stuck in the film’s metaphor for the White Terror.
Like many horror heroines, Fang does feature as the main character and sees significant screentime and backstory, but she traverses a male-dominated world. Her primary relationship revolves around a questionable romance with the school counselor, Mr. Zhang (Fu Meng-po). Though the film thankfully skirts the edges of propriety—they never actually cross any lines—a sense of ickiness still lingers throughout. But Fang isn’t defined by just one romance; Wei, too, has a crush on her and ensures that her story is told through the unfolding of mens’ narratives.
The other women in Detention fare worse. Fang’s mother has the unenviable position of being both victimized, seen with a perpetual bruise on her forehead from domestic abuse, yet villainized when we find out she turned in her husband to the authorities to exact revenge. The last we see of her, she prays at a Buddhist altar with a maniacal glint in her eye, her face bathed in red light while her daughter Fang looks on in shock.
In another supporting role, Fang’s teacher Miss Yin (Cecilia Choi) acts as an opponent. It’s unclear to viewers whether Miss Yin discourages Mr. Zhang from seeing Fang out of concern for the younger woman, or if she’s merely guarding her colleague’s affections for herself. In either case, the film uses Fang’s perspective to cast Miss Yin in a competitive light.
All of the above could generally be handwaved had our heroine’s story actually ended well. Instead, she falls into the worst stereotype of them all: a woman who sacrifices herself so that a man can live. The film reaches its climax when Fang rescues Wei from the clutches of monsters who want them dead. They bolt towards freedom—Wei clambers over the school gate and yells for Fang to follow him to safety. But in a confusing turn of events, Fang chooses to remain within the nightmare as penance for her sins.
The moment feels out of step with the entire film, which spends much of its time beating a drum about how important it is to survive traumatic events. Not only did Fang deserve to live, the choice to save herself would have only strengthened Detention’s message about living to fight another day.
Race: 5/5
It’s exciting to see a uniquely Taiwanese story carry the mantle of past auteurs. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, New Wave films like Hou Hsiao-hsien’s A City of Sadness (1989) and Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day (1991) intrepidly explored—and subtly critiqued—life under martial law. Today, Detention revisits similar territory but with the freedom of time and progress to lay bare its true ugliness.
In a way, Detention can feel like an overcorrection. Hsu’s film eschews nuance in favor of illustrating the era with literal monsters, hangings, and execution-style gunshots to the back of the head. But as with any examination of cultural trauma, the more voices and interpretations we have, the more future generations can process and heal as a community.
Mediaversity Grade: B 4.08/5
At face value, Hsu’s film stands as a competent video game adaptation. But given its pro-democratic message, delivered as despotism makes a nerve-wracking comeback in neighboring regions of Hong Kong or in the Philippines, the impact of Detention outpaces the confines of its technical skill.
Like Detention? Try these other titles featuring the struggle against police states.
Watchmen
The Terror: Infamy
Jojo Rabbit (2019)