Many of you know, I have been studying and learning to speak Mandarin Chinese over the past year. To help me study, I have been watching Chinese films. Last night, I was going to go to bed early, but I stumbled on a new Chinese film called, “The Great Hypnotist” and I ended up staying up very late. It sucked me in. Apparently, it was a box office hit in the Chinese market, and when you watch it you will know why. [Link to full movie on YouTube]
People love a good movie about hypnosis, even if the portrayal of hypnosis or the hypnotist is less than accurate in Hollywood (or in this case Dalian, the movie capital of China).
The movie is subtitled in English, so you will have to pay attention, but there are some really interesting plot twists, and a real interesting perspective on psychology, the subconscious mind and hypnotherapy in this movie. The entire film is embedded at the bottom of this post. Let me know what you think, I thought it was really well done, entertaining, interesting and most importantly, a pretty interesting take on hypnosis.
In this movie, there is no evil hypnotist, and hypnosis is presented at therapy.
Although the portrayal of induction, revivification, time distortion, and other phenomena are all embellished to fit a 2 hour movie with multiple hypnosis sessions, the results I think actually portray hypnosis fairly accurately – even if your personal style is not the same as that of the characters. I also found it interesting the the Chinese, seem to have created a more accurate portray of hypnosis than our own Hollywood movies like Office Space.
I would love to hear your thoughts about this movie. Here is the complete unedited movie with subtitles:
