[Film Review] New York Asian Film Festival: The Abandoned (2023)

One of the standout Taiwanese features played at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival was Ying-Ting Tseng’s The Abandoned, a bleak police procedural thriller that shone an uncomfortable spotlight on the harrowing realities faced by a country’s most vulnerable occupants.

Against the firework-lit New Year’s Eve sky, a serial killer stalks the streets of Taipei, targeting female immigrant workers from Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. In the midst of a suicide attempt, police officer Wu Jie (Janine Chang) comes across the bloated, mutilated body of one of the victims, embroiling her in the case despite her ongoing battle with her own personal demons. With the help of rookie assistant Wilson (Chloe Xiang) and factory owner Lin Yousheng (Ethan Juan), Wu Jie must work against the clock to find the killer and save the victims.

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The Abandoned is a visually stunning film, with more than its fair share of grisly moments that remain seared into your psyche long after the credits roll. Tseng takes clear inspiration from other masters of Asian genre cinema - fans of Bong Joon-ho’s work in the crime thriller subgenre (such as Memories of Murder) or the framing of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s urban hellscapes in Cure or Pulse will see where Tseng’s cinematic influences lie. There are also stylistic nods to the dark and grimy neo-noir works of David Fincher, as well as Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners.

A combination of truly gut-wrenching performances and realistic gore make The Abandoned feels so real you’d be forgiven for assuming it was based on real life events. And while it isn’t (at least, not explicitly stated), there’s no doubt that Tseng is acutely aware of the real-life discrimination, prejudice and violence faced by illegal working immigrants in his country and across the world. In our current cultural climate that sees immigrants demonized for escaping danger or seeking a better life for them and their families, The Abandoned feels particularly poignant.

At just over two hours long, The Abandoned does drag in certain places, especially towards the end once the adrenaline of the killer reveal wears off and at times The Abandoned feels longer than it is because of a feeling that you’ve seen this story before, multiple times. The plot points aren’t always the most original and are particularly similar to the usual clichés of serial killer thrillers (cop with past trauma, naive rookie assistant, grizzled older chief).  However, gender-swapping the traditionally male roles to women makes the femicide of the victims that much more harrowing, while adding a duality to the themes of displacement and loss of identity suffered, in different ways, by women on both sides of the story. 

And while the story beats might be those we’ve seen before, most importantly for any serial killer thriller, of course, is that the identity of the murderer comes as a surprise. Thankfully, The Abandoned plays its cards close to its chest, leaving you guessing right up until a reveal that feels earned, logical and truly chilling.

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