When it comes to supernatural horror, Taiwan continues to punch well above its weight. The latest example is Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo, a new film directed by Tsai Chia-Ying that combines traditional genre elements with an extra layer of emotional depth and a few genuinely clever twists on established formats. While it does get a little lost in its own intricacies during the second half, it is nonetheless a ghostly trip worth taking. This is Tsai’s directorial debut, and a very assured and confident one at that.

A young man named Chai-ming (Jasper Liu) wakes in a youth hostel at the foot of Taiwan’s central mountains. He is there with his somewhat sullen girlfriend Yu-hsin (Angela Yuen), and while on the mountain trail he carefully examines the engagement ring he plans to use to propose marriage. The film drip-feeds back story throughout. It is not long before we learn he has unsuccessfully proposed before, that Yu-hsin has been struggling emotionally, and that she misses An-wei (Tsao Yu-ning) – an ex-boyfriend who went missing in the mountains five years ago.

It only takes a few minutes for Chai-ming and Yu-hsin’s day to include a mysterious dead body, creepy sounds in the woods, bizarre secret rituals, and an urban legend of a ghost – dressed in a tattered raincoat – that will make you disappear if you look at it. At that point things get particularly weird.

There is a shift in the film at about the 25-minute mark that transforms the narrative significantly, and which propels Chai-ming into his own personal hell. On the one hand it is wonderfully inventive, and adds a fresh angle on what could easily be a generic supernatural thriller – the same producers previously made local hits The Tag-Along (2015) and The Devil Fish (2018), and this marks their third round of transforming Taiwanese urban myths into horror movies. At the same time it leads the film to fail Yu-hsin to some degree: her character is subsumed by the focus on her aspiring fiancée.

It also makes the film just a little too involved and complicated for its own good. It is a challenge to get sucked into the ghostly horrors when one has to keep half on eye on what is actually going on.

Tsai demonstrates a strong line in unsettling moments, however, and some of the imagery employed is quite remarkable. The film benefits enormously from its mountainous locations: Taiwan is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and Haunted Mountains acts as quite the showcase at times.

Performances – which also include Spark Chen, Wu Kunda, and Bruce Chiu – are for the most part effectively delivered and verge on the right side of over-the-top. That said, melodramatic excess is rarely too far away, as is the wont of most commercial film from the region.

Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo offers mixed results, but the good elements easily outweigh the drawbacks and at its best this inventive and unexpected ghost story delivers an effective level of atmosphere and creepiness. Fans of the genre – and of Chinese-language cinema – should take note.

Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo is an official selection of the 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival. For more information, click here.