We know the five stages of grief to be denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, but what if there’s a sixth unnamed emotion? Regret. Written by Zou Wan-Zhen (Women in Taipei), and directed by Tsai Chai Ying (The Remains), the new Taiwanese horror Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo – which is Ying’s feature film debut – explores this deeply intense and dark emotion through the psychological breakdown of Chia Ming (Jasper Liu), a man whose desperation to hold onto his relationship with his girlfriend gets leads to a never ending cycle days filled with the torment of grief, regret, and guilt.
Inspired by the Taiwanese urban legend of the Yushan Xiaofeixia of a group of three ghostly spectres in the giant yellow raincoats who haunt the deep recesses of the Yusan (Jade) Mountain, Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo is film that successfully weaves urban legend, traditional folklore, occultism, and romance into an entertaining and compelling horror about love, jealousy, regret, and forgiveness.
When best friends Chia Ming, Yu Hsin (Angela Yuen), and An Wei (Tsao Yu-Ning) take a hike up the famed Jade Mountain they expect their day to be the same as any other day they’ve hiked other mossy woodland trails. The last thing they expect to encounter is a group of hikers and rescuers congregating around the body of a dead hiker. After making typical inquiries to satisfy their curiosity, the trio shake off whatever misgivings they have and continue on their way. But as the trail becomes more difficult to navigate and fog descends, they fail to pay attention to the signs that things just aren’t quite right…until they come to a path blocked by torn yellow fabric strung between trees.
Against the hesitant suggestions from Chia Ming and Yu Hsin that perhaps they should turn back, An Wei insists there’s nothing wrong and the other two give in, leading to the biggest mistake and torment of their lives, for beyond obvious warning these yellow signs provide, the friends push through and stumble upon a blood ritual being performed by masked individuals. This one action sets off a chain reaction of events where Chia Ming is plunged into a never ending timeloop where he relives this horrific day watching the two people he cares the most about die over and over again and ghastly spectres in yellow raincoats and constantly shifting indistinguishable faces haunt him in this waking nightmare.
Timeloop storylines aren’t new by any means to genre films, including horrors and psychological thrillers. But what makes this aspect of Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo work is how it delves into the psyche of a man whose own emotions are what’s keeping him trapped more than any otherworldly force seems to be.
Though he loves An Wei, his desire to be a support for Yu Hsin, the person she can turn to in her darkest times overrides everything else, and that desire becomes twisted with everyday Chia Ming is forced to relive her death. Every day he wakes, Chia Ming is wracked with not preventing them from making such a huge mistake, his feelings for Yu Hsin, and his inability to stop it all from happening again.
Whenever Chia Ming takes a step towards figuring out how to end the loop, and get off the mountain, he’s not only thrown back to the point where it all went wrong, he’s tossed sideways, like a leaf in a thunderstorm, or a puppet on a string. Offsetting everything he thought he understood and believed.
Audiences familiar with Liu know him for his lead roles as the sweet and charming male lead in period and romantic dramas such as 2021’s Fall in Love with a Scientist, or the more serious period occupation era dramas like My Bittersweet Taiwan, and with Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo, they’ll get to see Lie stretch his acting wings as a man wracked with guilt and regret forced to confront his innermost feelings and learn that the best way to survive a storm is to push through it no matter how painful the process is.
Though some elements of the narrative are a bit uneven such as the introduction of a family that ends up having connections to the group and certain aspects of the occult and Shamanic themes without enough explanation on their connections, the film is intriguing and has great rewatch value as there’s clues that could be missed on first viewing.
Haunted Mountain: The Yellow Taboo had its international premiere as an official selection of the 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, Canada. There I spoke to director Ying and the film’s producer Ivan Chen about working in the Taiwanese film industry, making the change from commercial projects to a genre film, its themes of regret, guilt and folklore, and casting Liu for a role unlike any he’s done before.
Interpreting for the interview was conducted by Xige Yi.
Carolyn Hinds
Freelance Film Critic, Journalist, Podcaster & YouTuber
African American Film Critics Association Member, Tomatometer-Approved Critic
Host & Producer Carolyn Talks…, and So Here’s What Happened! Podcast
Bylines at Authory.com/CarolynHinds
Twitter & Instagram: @CarrieCnh12
#TheYellowTaboo #KCrushInterviewWithHuntedMountainTheYellowTaboo #TsaiChiaYing #IvanChen #KCrushInterviewWithDirectorTsaiChiaYingandProducerIvanChen #kcrush #kcrushamerica #kcrushmagazine #kcrushinterview #2025FantasiaInternationalFilmFestival #MontrealCanada #FallInLoveWithAScientist #horror #WrittenbyZouWan-Zhen #Taiwaneseurbanlegendof theYushanXiaofeixia
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