FANTASIA 2025: ‘Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo’ Gets A Little Lost In The Weeds

Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo easily fits into The Tag-Along universe, drawing heavy inspiration from another Taiwanese urban legend surrounding the man with a yellow raincoat. Stories typically depict this legendary being as being located in the mountains, luring people off the trail to their inevitable doom. Directed by Tsai Chia-Ying and written by Zou Wan-Zhen, The Yellow Taboo is not a simple haunting, with its endless time loop configuration. However, as its characters get closer to unearthing the mystery of this spectral creature, the story loses its footing.

Chia Ming (Jasper Liu) and Yu Hsin (Angela Yuen) have gone off to the mountains to hike. Hoping to take the next step with Yu Hsin, Chia Ming is ready to propose to her. However, ever since he woke up, there’s been an ominous feeling in the air. Crashing tins, a spooky story, and the discovery of a body scream ‘wrong time, wrong place.’ Yet, the couple perseveres until he witnesses the brutal death of his lover. Before he even has a chance to process his grief, Chia Ming wakes up in bed back at the lodge. It’s almost like what happened was a dream. Except it’s not. 

Despite his best efforts, Chia Ming finds himself watching Yu Hsin die over and over again. It doesn’t matter where they go. The vengeful spirit that has latched onto her won’t let go. From the beginning, it’s unclear why this spirit has attached itself to her, but it delights in seeing Chia Ming and her suffer. As Chia Ming tries to find clues to solve how to break the loop, he soon realizes that this may all be connected to a hiking incident five years prior with him, Yu Hsin, and a friend (Tsao Yu Ning).

Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo sets up strong stakes, but its logic falls apart in the second half.

The first half of Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo builds up a compelling mystery full of blood and terror. The creative ways in which Chia Ming is thwarted in each loop show how far the spirit’s reach extends, even going beyond the mountains it typically dwells in. While Yu Hsin is mainly relegated to a repeatedly fridged love interest, each death is different and unique, with the camera never pulling away when things get bloody. Much like other time loop-related storylines, the constant failure becomes expected, just as the deaths do. 

Central to everything in Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo is Jasper Liu. As Chia Ming, his frustration and despair fuel everything. But as answers start to emerge, this would-be savior is not what he appears to be. Instead, he is ruled by envy and can’t let go of the past, adding an extra layer to his desperation as he tries to save his love. 

As Jasper Liu’s onscreen partner, Angela Yuen does her best with what she’s given. Unfortunately, she can’t quite hide the character’s overall lack of development, with most of her screen time dedicated to dying. A late-in-the-game reveal about her fears feels shaky and adds understandable yet hollow sadness in the finale. Had there been more time, it would have been interesting to explore this fear further in relation to the film’s theme of “letting go.”

Shamanistic elements and rituals clash with the time loop, ultimately raising more questions.

Letting go of the things that weigh on our hearts is an important theme in Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo. The characters are forced to meet the same fate. It extends not just to Chia Ming and Yu Hsin, but to other characters they meet later on. This theme serves as an answer to the characters’ dilemma, yet not entirely, when considering other characters and Chia Ming’s ultimate solution. In terms of handling and finesse, the final act doesn’t quite achieve a strong impact in relation to the film’s theme, but it’s serviceable, albeit a bit messy.

Not helping matters are the ritualistic elements featured, which explain some things but don’t fill in the gaps in the final act. While the initial discovery of the first ritual offers some intriguing moments of distorted lens work and a sense of the otherworldly, further connections to the ritual and subsequent shamanism raise more questions than provide answers. Attempts to provide answers make an already busy plot even more muddled, paving the way for some confusion.

Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo has an incredibly strong first half, but gets lost in the weeds as it navigates its way to its ending. The scares and deaths are a highlight, with the time loop stoking natural tensions and exasperation for its characters. With Jasper Liu at the center, it’s hard not to hone in on the mystery and go along for the journey. Unfortunately, this journey is incredibly bumpy, a bit messy, and may give you a headache by the end. 

Haunted Mountains: The Yellow Taboo played as a part of the 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival.