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Nightmare
Movie

Nightmare

2012 • Unknown

Woke Score
2
out of 10

Plot

Hao Dong suffers from insomnia. One night he sees his neighbour across the street getting murdered. But when he arrives at the scene to investigate, the body has disappeared and the apartment turns out to be vacant. His girlfriend Yifan believes lack of sleep is playing tricks on his mind. Then he is witness to yet another murder, this time in his hometown of Nine Mile Village, and once again he appears to have imagined it all. Or is there something more going on? Does Hao Dong’s childhood in Nine Mile Village hold the key to this mystery?

Overall Series Review

Nightmare (2012) is a Chinese psychological thriller centered on Hao Dong, an insomniac white-collar worker, whose visions of a murder lead him back to his childhood village and a repressed memory of an unsolved crime. The film employs a non-linear narrative, blurring the lines between reality, dreams, and hallucination to explore the protagonist's fragile mental state. His girlfriend, a competent psychologist named Yifan, serves as a grounded, rational counterpoint, attempting to use her professional expertise to piece together the mystery alongside him. The plot focuses on a personal, local horror tied to the rural setting of Nine Mile Village and the weight of the past. The movie's core themes are psychological trauma and the nature of reality, operating entirely within a specific Chinese cultural and censorship context that dictates how supernatural elements are presented.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics1/10

The movie is a Chinese production with an entirely Chinese cast, focusing on a personal murder mystery and psychological distress. There is no presence of 'race-swapping,' vilification of 'whiteness,' or a narrative that relies on Western intersectional hierarchy or political lecturing. Character conflicts are purely based on the mystery and the protagonist's mental state.

Oikophobia1/10

The plot involves a trip back to the protagonist's depressed hometown, Nine Mile Village, to uncover a buried truth. The presence of a 'run-down ancestral hall' is part of the setting and the mystery, not a demonization of cultural heritage. The movie's focus is on solving a local crime, not on promoting hostility toward Western civilization or deconstructing Chinese heritage.

Feminism3/10

The female lead, Yifan, is a successful, professional psychologist and radio host who actively tries to diagnose and help her distressed male partner, Hao Dong, through his breakdown and the mystery. She functions as a rational problem-solver and a source of stability, not a bumbling or toxic figure. While this shows the female character in a highly competent role in contrast to the male lead's distress, it presents a complementary, adult relationship where one partner helps the other, rather than a clear 'Girl Boss' trope used to lecture on gender dynamics or vilify masculinity.

LGBTQ+1/10

The narrative centers on a traditional male-female relationship between the protagonist and his psychologist girlfriend. The plot is strictly focused on a psychological mystery and murder. There is no presence or discussion of alternative sexualities, deconstruction of the nuclear family, or gender ideology, aligning with a normative structure and keeping sexuality private.

Anti-Theism2/10

As a Chinese psychological thriller, the film must navigate strict censorship rules which often mandate that any supernatural elements, such as ghosts or hauntings, must ultimately be explained as repressed memory, mental illness, or scientific phenomena. This reliance on a secular, psychological explanation minimizes the role of any traditional faith and implies a subjective reality, but it is an artifact of the production environment, not an ideological attack on 'Traditional religion,' especially Christianity, which is not a central cultural element of the film.