Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Asad Almond A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

asian-cineblog 4bia is an anthology of four supposedly scary stories from four different Thai directors. Interestingly, horror movies' compilations allow the viewer to briefly explore and experience the many competences of different directors. Yongyoot Thongkongtoon (Happiness), Paween Purikitpanya (Tit for Tat), Banjong Pisanthanakun (In the Middle) and Parkpoom Wongpoom (Last Flight) delivered, in this particular case, four entirely distinctive segments reviewed below.Happiness, the first segment, introduces the viewer to the story of a girl who has suffered a car accident, which has left her at home for the past three months with a broken leg. As she feels lonely at home, the main protagonist decides to answer an unknown text she receives in her cell phone. Review. Peculiarly, no dialog is registered during the whole movie and the plot is based for the majority of the film in only one character. A nerve-wracking atmosphere is chiefly well constructed considering the characteristics of the short story. Even though the film aspires to principally create a feeling of insecurity and suspense, the director tentatively cared to include a minimal explanation for the occurring events throughout the movie.In Tit for Tat, a group of obnoxious teenagers attacks a classmate, eventually accidentally pushing him off of a speeding vehicle. The victim returns nevertheless to punish the ones that have maltreated him. Review. Tremendously ineffective and mind-numbing, the second installment of the anthology seems to be pitifully dragged for more than 20 minutes, making it an exercise in patience. The characters are extremely annoying, the acting is probably the worst of the four segments, the death scenes aren't even original, dreadful special effects, exacerbated amounts of blood coming out of one single body, stains of blood looking like red wine stains and with CGI being probably even worse than the one observed in a 0.49$ video game. All in all, Tit for Tat intends to be a tale of revenge although it only achieves being easily considered the worst segment of the movie.In the Middle describes the adventure of four friends out camping. After spending the night sharing ghost stories, an unexpected accident happens the following day, as one of them appears to drown in the river. Review. From the beginning, an intended humorous component in the movie is observed, although it may seem out of place and particularly not that hilarious overall. Mentioning Shutter, his previous masterpiece, twice is also peculiarly awkward and quite embarrassing specially considering that the quality of In the Middle is visibly inferior to the referred movie. The stereotypical teenagers are mostly annoying borderlining a childish attitude and the plot is poorly developed. A final twist is registered at the end of the movie although not being particularly satisfactory.With Last Flight, the viewer is introduced to the story of a stewardess that is chosen to be the only flight attendant on a flight taking home the body of deceased princess. Review. Contrarily to Banjong Pisanthanakun who was also, alongside with Parkpoom Wongpoom, the co-director of Alone and Shutter, the director in this case is able to deliver the most mature and disturbing segment of the anthology. The four installment of the compilation is by far the best developed and most interesting. With the plot being claustrophobically confined to an airplane, the movie is capable of creating an atmosphere of suspense and terror. Notwithstanding a predictable ending and a few well-known clichés in every Asian horror movie, the movie embraces a decent and well-constructed argument. The acting is quite superior as well to the one registered in the previous segments and overall, the short story appears to be the most consistent and solid of the four.All in all, the movie clearly does not work as a whole, being far from cohesive. Interestingly though, a connection appears to have been created between the four segments, although it almost seems irrelevant at the end considering how distinctive the stories are and how the concept of facing fears is treated in each segment.http://asian-cineblog.blogspot.pt/2013/10/4bia.html

MattJaa I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I read all of the reviews here so I won't go into what the individual stories are about but I liked each of them. The effects were just fine for me, not Hollywood but not terrible. It was a fun watch and one that I would likely watch again.The only complaint that I have is that the first three stories are sub-titled but much of the dialogue text is on the screen for too short a time, I had to scan back and pause to read it. The second story had some distracting camera work as well. Other than that, a very enjoyable movie. Give it a shot; I don't think you'll be disappointed. Cheers.

shmobbie So, I'm going to write a little mini review for each short as they show and as I see them and then do a review of the movie as a whole after..story 1: Happiness effective little ghost story using texting as a medium where a recently deceased ghost talks to a home ridden young woman. I will say that this one is pretty creepy, some great shots are displayed and some cliché stuff is also used. I liked this one a lot for some reason, I usually don't get so into movies using cell phones as main plot devices, I.e. one missed call.story 2: Tit For Tat Bad nu metal in Thai playing almost constantly, check. Attractive main cast bullies who picks on nerdy kid, check. Revenge story? Yes. This one plays out a little similar to another thai film, Art of the Devil 2 which I didn't enjoy too much. It's directed by the dude who did Shutter, which I also didn't like so much.. But despite the awful CG at the end, I enjoyed this one, it was fun and predictable. Predictable may be bad other places, but I enjoyed it here.story 3: In the Middle I started out disliking this one.. Nu metal, kayaking, stereotypical teenage dudes.. But it's ripe with movie references, comedy that's actually funny, and a pretty decently creepy story. Based on other reviews I thought this might be a lot worse but I actually really enjoyed it.story 4: Last Fright Probably my favorite of the 4 shorts just because it was built up so well. This one had the most 'classic' feel to it and was a lot of fun, I jumped on the inside a couple times and was into this one all the way through. Nice little Hitchcockian score also.Anyway, Fun is the best way to describe this nice little anthology. I grew up on Tales From the Crypt and Creepshow and I'm recently in the past years getting more and more into Asian cinema so this is a film I've been looking forward to. Bottom line, it entertained me and that's all I need.A great rental at least!

Onderhond There is no such thing as Asian horror. Even though there are plenty of common elements, each country has its own way of dealing with horror films, especially stylistically. 4bia is a new anthology project giving room to four Thai talents. The four stories are ever so slightly related, but stand well on their own and bring their own vision on what Thai horror has to add to the genre.The first short is directed by Thongkonthun, a relatively fresh director with little experience in the horror genre. His short has a pretty conventional theme, being nothing more than a simple girl, ghost, haunt story. Still, the angle of the short is pretty special, as no actual dialog is being used. The girl is homebound and isolated from her friends and all conversations are held through sms contact. Not a first, as more and more films are trying to integrating digital communication, but still quite a novel experience.Visually, the short is decent with several attractive shots, though the single setting does get a little boring after a while. We follow he girl in her room for the entire running time, only at the very end do we get some shots from outside. As a whole, the short is convincing enough and even though the story is extremely traditional, the execution makes it worthwhile. It's Thongkonthun's talent that keeps this film well away from falling into the boredom trap. 4* Next up is a short from Shutter director Pisanthanakun. Shutter was a pretty big Asian horror hit, but what Pisanthanakun puts on display here is different and easily the most interesting short of the bunch. The short is shot entirely as if making a trailer, including color bleeds, short freeze frames, hectic cuts and speed fluctuations. A true visual feast, sadly more and more cheap CG creeps in, resulting in a rather horrible and amateurish climax.For those familiar with the Art of the Devil series, the story will hold little surprises, though the revenge theme of the film has been given a nice swing. The style of the film makes it a little hard to follow, but the basics are clear enough and the short looks really impressive. With a little tweaking on the CG part this would've been perfect, luckily this is easily forgotten when considering the rest of the film. 4.5* Third short is made by Wongpoom, co-director of Shutter. Again someone with some solid experience in the field of horror. And it shows. A completely different short than Pisanthanakun's, Wongpoom's film draws more to the likes of Craven's Scream trilogy. Four guys go rafting together, but when they all end up in the water things take a turn for the worse.The atmosphere in this film is pretty relaxed, with little to no scares or creeps. To compensate, there's a thin layer of humor running underneath everything that happens, with a rather amusing (but possible frustrating) running gag spoiling the ending of at least three popular horror films (The Sixth Sense, The Others and Shutter), even throwing in Titanic for good measure. There are some genuinely funny moments, though I assume it's not as fun if you haven't seen the mentioned films yet. Visually a little underdeveloped, but since the focus lies on the humor that's easily ignored. 4* Sadly, the final short is the least interesting of the bunch. Even though none of the shorts bring something new to the table story-wise, they all have some interesting points of execution. Purikitpanya is the only one delivering a pretty standard horror fare, with a dead body haunting a stewardess on her flight home.Purikitpanya shows a keen eye for composition from time to time, and the introduction of the princess (who ends up in the body bag) is pretty fun, but from that point on the short brings nothing but a bag of horror clichés. Purikitpanya's sense of style keeps it going until the end, but people who've seen their fair share of Asian horror films might be a little bored by the end of it. 3* All in all, the film presents four fun horror shorts, none of them below average, three of them come up with interesting elements. Thai horror is doing well for itself, and even though it's not quite yet ready to battle the better horror films coming from China and Japan, there's some real talent hidden away in here. A fun film for horror adepts looking for something outside the typical horror offerings. 4.0*/5.0*