Please note the definite article: The Soul (Ji hun) is a Taiwanese film on Netflix, and not Soul, the animated Oscar nominee from Pixar you can see on Disney+. Filmmaker Cheng Wei Hao liberally stirs elements from science fiction, crime procedurals, mystery, horror and melodrama into this dense story about a cancer-stricken prosecutor investigating the murder of a prominent business tycoon. Now let’s see if the director can hold all this stuff together.
The Gist: Taipei, 2032. The cops arrive at the Wang mansion. Mr. Wang (Samuel K) is dead on the floor, his skull caved in, blood everywhere. His wife, Li Yan (Sun Anke), is unconscious beside him, holding a strange brass instrument she maybe used to bludgeon him.
His son, Tian-You (Lin Hui Min), fled the scene. Tian-You’s mother, Su-Chen (Zhang Baijia), was long neglected by Mr. Wang, and she killed herself a year prior. Mr. Wang was terminally ill with brain cancer,
and left all the assets and control of his multi-billion-dollar corporation to Li Yen and the company’s CEO, Dr. Wan (Christopher Ming-Shun Lee). Complicating already complicated matters, the crime scene is littered with odd, mystical-occult clues, including a sigil carved into the door and the scent of burning belladonna (which some may know as deadly nightshade).
