‘Detention’: Film Review
The “White Terror” period in Taiwan’s history, during which thousands were executed by order of the repressive Kuomintang (KMT) authorities, has been little explored in film. Hou Hsiao-hsien’s “A City of Sadness” is one exception, and Edward Yang’s “A Brighter Summer Day” makes oblique reference to it. But away from the arthouse, depiction of the state’s violent, decades-long suppression of “dissident” activity, has been all but taboo. John Hsu’s “Detention” is designed to address that lack in a populist format: the film is an ambitious, if not entirely successful mix of haunted-house horror, monster movie, love story, historical reckoning and sentimentalized call for the national remembrance of a period many would prefer to forget.