|
In Thailand, Chongwai is
welcoming his friends Ted, Ted's cousin May, his friend Kofei and Kofei's
girlfriend April from Hong Kong.
While on a tour, they see an accident on the road, and when they return to Chongwai's home,
they decide to tell ghost stories. Chongwai shows them a mystic book, The Ten Encounters,
which describes ten ways to see spirits. They decide to play its game, which
they can begin on any step. Once the game begins, they must finish it or forever
be haunted by ghosts.
Chongwai reveals the history of where he got the book. One day when he took
the wrong bus and got lost, he arrived at a book store to ask for directions
where he encounters the book on the shelf. The owner takes the book from
Chongwai's hands and tells him he must pay before reading it. The man offers him
a discount saying how karma led him to
that book and sells it to Chongwai for 500 Bhat. The man tells Chongwai not to
open to the last page or be forever cursed. During the night, a strange wind
storm occurs and flips the book to the last page. In it, it reveals the book
costs fifty Bhat.
They begin the game on step three where they try the spirit glass game where
only Kofei sees the ghost. The ghost moves the glass around until Chongwai's
mother appears and scares them. Chongwai reveals to his friends his mother is a
spiritualist. Afterwards they went to an
intersection where they attracted ghost with the fourth method. Ghosts arrived
where everyone but May was able to see them. May, frustrated by being unable to
see ghosts, tells them to continue the game, even though everyone else is afraid
to continue. They continue to method five where they are playing hide and seek
in a forest with May being the seeker. May finds everyone except for
Kofei, who as said in the book, is the missing person with the ghost. He is
considered missing because the ghost covers Kofei's presence. May releases a black
cat, hoping it will break the
spell so they can find Kofei. They search around until they find the black cat
dead at the tree on which Kofei urinated.
The next day, the police are called to search the forest for Kofei but to no
avail. April tries step six and rubs the grave soil on her eyes. Her eyes fall
out, replaced by red sun-like eyes. She falls unconscious where Chongwai's
mother cleans the dirt off her eyes and tells her how close she was to the purgatory
world. April's eyes are
still intact because she did not have her eyes open with the dirt on long
enough. Chongwai's mother tells his friends to leave before something bad also
happen to them. April says she wants to stay and find Kofei, while her friends
leave in fear. That night, April in tears, brushes her hair at midnight; then
her fate becomes uncertain.
Ted and May continue their lives without mentioning the occurrence of what
happened in Thailand. One day while May is in the subway, she finds an umbrella
held by someone invisible. She sees it and runs away. On the bus home, her
umbrella suddenly pops open. May then sees a basketball rolling back and forth. She steps over it
until it becomes a head and bites her ankle. She screams and jumps, and the
passengers on the bus tell her it is only a ball. On the way back to her
apartment she sees the ball again. She tries to side step is but the ball
follows her. Afterwards she starts running, and the ball outruns her. She stops,
and the ball begins to be dribbled by an invisible person. She performs step
nine, the peek-a-stoop to find a boy dribbling the ball. The boy performs the
peek-a-stoop and reveals his rotting face to her. She screams and enters her
house where the basket is thrown on the door and she calls Ted.
On his way to May, Ted receives a phone call about the disappearance of
April. Later, he takes the elevator to the floor where May lives, encountering
many ghosts on the way. He finds the ball May tells him about and kicks it, only
to become possessed. Once possessed, Ted seems to be
pop breakdancing. A pair of breakdancers arrive and
figure Ted is challenging them. After a breakdancing battle, Ted, still
possessed, walks on the wall and stands on the ceiling. The dancers and viewers
who have come to watch them dance leave after figuring out Ted is possessed.
Ted, unpossessed, regains consciousness after his fall. He grabs the girl who is
in the hallway and tells her it is dangerous and to come with him. They enter May's room, where she is wrapped in a blanket with two zappers
where they talk. Ted
asks where that girl he bought in is and she reveals he came in alone. Ted
receives a flashback and plays his
video camera of the recording of the accident which reveals the dead body of the
girl he just brought. He perfects a peek-a-stoop and finds the girl and screams.
They leave the house. The girl watches the film and realizes she is dead and
crosses over to the other side in a blinding flash of light.
Chongwai is studying the curse that the book places on them and visits the
book store. He finds the book and the pictures of the characters have been
replaced by him and his friends. He finds out the person who sold the book is
the one who is doing the curse. Before he gets to ask questions about it, his
mother pulls him away and tells him that man and the curse are more dangerous
than he thinks. Ted and May return to Thailand to try and beat the curse. They figured if
they completed the game, they can escape the curse. Thus begins step ten. Ted
and May wear traditional Chinese funeral clothes and go to sleep. Before so,
Chongwai tells them they have a limited time in the purgatory world and when
they hear the bell, they must go into the light to return.
In purgatory, Ted and May encounter ghosts who surround them. They chase the
ghosts away with their breaths, which seems to damage the ghosts in some way.
They continue onwards and find the ghost who was covering Kofei. He reveals to
them he has been waiting for over an hour for them where they reveal he has
actually been gone for a month. They become surrounded in great numbers until
April breaks through and guides them to a safe place. Ted, May, and Kofei hear the bell and they see the light. April says she does
not and reveals that because she thought Kofei was dead and that step eight was
a failure, she slit her wrist deeply and died. Kofei tells them he will stay
here with April and tells Ted and May to go. The light begins to suck and push
everything. Kofei pushes Ted and May to the light.
Ted and May end up on the mats where they were laid. Chongwai is nowhere to
be seen. They enter the house only to appear at the hallway where they see two
male teens playing with the haunted basketball. The teens kick the ball towards
Ted and May, and they run right past the two. Ted and May touch each other and
find each other to be solid. They are confused by what is happening. Meanwhile the scene changes to Chongwai and his mother ringing the bell over
the unconscious bodies of Ted and May. Chongwai, released from the curse, is
distraught over the loss of his friends. Chongwai's mother reveals the curse of
the book was dangerous and that the only way out was the death of someone.
The ten methods for viewing the dead as described in The Ten
Encounters are as follows:
- A corneal transplant from a donor who is psychic (as seen in The
Eye)
- Attempting to commit suicide while pregnant (as seen in The Eye 2).
- Playing the Spirit Glass game (similar to Western Ouija boards).
- Tapping chopsticks on an empty bowl at an intersection to attract hungry
spirits.
- Playing hide and seek at midnight while holding a black cat.
- Rubbing the dirt from a grave around your eyes.
- Opening an umbrella while indoors.
- Brushing your hair at midnight while staring into a mirror.
- Bending over and looking between your legs (called the "Peek-a-stoop" in the
film).
- Dressing up in "used" funeral clothes whilst sleeping to fool the dead into
believing you are one of them. (The film is not clear on how one is supposed to
obtain used funeral clothes, but this could be a translation error.)
 Copyright(C) 2007
- 2020. All rights reserved.
|
|