Fantasia IFF 2025 – KCrush Interview with ‘Haunted Mountain: The Yellow Taboo’ with Director Tsai Chia Ying and Producer Ivan Chen

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 (Shan Chi Huang I Hsiao Fei Hsia)—which is Tsai’s feature film debut—explores this deeply intense and dark emotion through the psychological breakdown of Jia-ming (Jasper Liu), a man whose fear over his relationship with his girlfriend ending gets leads to a never ending cycle of days filled with the torment of grief, regret, and guilt.

Inspired by the Taiwanese urban legend of the Yushan Xiaofeixia about 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 relationship drama into an entertaining and compelling horror.

When best friends Jia-ming, Yu-xin (Angela Yuan), and her boyfriend and Jia-min’s childhood friend, An-wei (Tsao Yu-ning) decide to go hiking on a sunny day they expect their day to be the same as any other when they’ve trekked other mossy woodland trails. So the last thing they expect is to encounter a group of hikers and rescuers congregating around the body of a man who’s apparently died under mysterious circumstances. 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 aren’t quite right…until they come to a path blocked by torn yellow fabric strung between trees.

Against the hesitant suggestions from Jia-Ming and Yu-xin that perhaps they should turn back, An-wei insists there’s nothing wrong and the other two give in and cross the barrier. By violating this “Yellow Taboo”, they end up making the biggest mistake of their lives, for beyond this obvious sign of caution, the friends stumble upon a blood ritual being performed by masked individuals. This one action sets off a chain reaction of events where Jia-Ming is plunged into a timeloop where he repeatedly relives this horrific day watching the two people he cares the most about die over and over again for days, months, and years. Ghastly spectres in yellow raincoats constantly shifting indistinguishable faces haunt him in this waking nightmare only seems to be aware of.

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 as much as the otherworldly forces at work seem to be.

Though he loves An-wei, his desire to be the person that Yu-xin loves and wants to spend her life with, overrides everything else, and that desire becomes twisted with his insecurities at not measuring up to his friend, plagues Jia-Ming with doubts he can’t ignore. Every day he wakes, Jia-Ming is wracked with guilt at not preventing them from making such a huge mistake, his feelings for Yu-xin, failing An-wei, and his inability to stop it all from happening again.

Whenever Jia-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 romantic dramas such as 2021’s Fall in Love with a Scientist, or more serious period occupation era dramas like My Bittersweet Taiwan, and with Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo, they’ll get to see Liu stretch his acting wings a bit more as a man wracked with self-recrimination as he’s forced to confront his inner demons 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. The production quality is very high as the set design, score and sound effects, and cinematography all meld together to create an atmospheric thriller that makes one curious to learn more about Taiwanese folklore, and perhaps venture into dark forests for a bit of adventure…or maybe not.

Haunted Mountains: 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 Tsai and 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 this 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

 

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