Legend Of Miracles

Title: The Tattooist Spoken Language: English / Chinese / Samoan Subtitles: English and Chinese Genre: Horror / Supernatural Rating: NC - 16 Summary: American tattoo artist Jake Sawyer (Jason Behr) explores and exploits ethnic designs from around the world. At a tattoo expo in Singapore, he glimpses the exotic world of traditional Samoan tatau in the work of the fiercely proud Alipati (Robbie Magasiva). Fatefully, Jake is attracted to Alipati’s beautiful cousin, Sina (Mia

When Jake impulsively steals an ancient Samoan tattooing tool, he
unwittingly unleashes a powerful angry spirit. Suddenly, his art takes on a frightening new dimension, exposing everyone he touches, including the feisty Singaporean Victoria (Caroline Cheong), to mortal peril.

Sensing the solution can only lie with the Samoans, Jake follows them to Auckland, where he runs into an old adversary, tattoo artist Crash (Michael Hurst) and a new one, the respected Samoan elder Aleki Va’a (David Fane).

His investigation takes him on a devastating journey into the dark heart of Pacific mysticism. There, Jake must recover his own soul if he is to save the woman he loves and escape with his life.

Review: As I admitted to Min, I always have a soft spot for horror movies. Besides, I haven’t been to movies for a long time. So it was yesterday, when I met up with Min, that we trooped down to the theatre and bought the tickets for the horror flick, “The Tattooist”. But to my horror, it was not that horrifying after all.

There wasn’t really anything much to the storyline. The 1 hour and 45 minutes movie can be condensed as such: A) A tattooist stole a tattoo tool, B) He met a lady whom he fall in love at first sight, C) His works became life-threatening - at least to the people who got tattooed - and horrors descend, and D) He manages to solve the whole mystery - which actually means finding out what the spirit wants - and saves the day. And the girl as well. Finally, there is an unspoken rule that they live happily ever after. That’s all to the storyline.

It’s not exactly for the faint of heart. But it is quite trying for the mind. I was almost bored to tears and I looked at the watch quite a few times. The so-called horrors are nothing more than just cheap flickering visions, fast UMOs - Unidentified Moving Objects - in mirrors or glass panels, lots of blood, sudden sound blarings and those stupid anticipation by the actors. You know, slowly walking and looking at something, only to find out that it is nothing.

Not only that, there are some scenes which were disjointed. I didn’t follow the stealing tattoo tool part, nor the sudden exodus to Auckland. Worse of all, I didn’t even know why he wanted to find that girl so badly. There isn’t any explanation at all. If he did not attempt to find that girl in Singapore, why would he want to find her in Auckland, just after having a few nightmares? You definitely don’t see me running to a girl I’ve just met recently after having nightmares. You’ll probably find me in the arms of my mother.

The saving grace of the film is probably the strong Samoan cultures that permeates throughout the movie and the origins of tattoos, or “tatau”, as they call it. It cast tattoos as arts, or in the Samoa culture, the pe’a rites where it means boys become men.

And I absolutely have to say this. It is kind of sad that Singapore could be so easily represented by Fullerton Hotel and that hideous statue known as Merlion. I don’t have anything against that water spewing sculpture, but honestly, that statue is so hideous that it is almost embarrassing. At least they left poor Stamford Raffles alone. The pitiful Englishman has been looking at Singapore River for the past 90 years, although I have no idea what he is looking at. Some say he is looking at the future of Singapore. I say he is looking at his homeland wistfully.

Rating: If it wasn’t for the colloboration between Singapore’s Mediacorp Raintree and New Zealand’s Touchstone TV, I would have given worse. 2.0 / 5.0 for the show.