Watched all eight episodes of Vietnam's 2022 Land of Spirits: The Young Shaman, a slapstick comedy about Tinh Lam, the son of exorcists, who takes on different cases and performs rituals, assisted by his butler, Manny. The cases include a haunted house, a river ghost, a series of possessions, a raped and murdered victim's ghost, a paralyzed old man, an abusive father, ghost children, and a haunted theater (my favorite set of sequences, though Ms. Nga's dialogue had no subtitles).

The cases overlap and are intertwined for they are all within the milieu of characters who are village stereotypes, including a Greek chorus of three gay gossips. The props and rituals are interesting. I liked the prayer prelude "May my prayer be heard everywhere. I pray to the deceased souls. I pray to all the elderly, uncles, aunties, brothers and sisters, to all my peers, and to all the children." The writer and the director give us some unique imagery. The movie is, however, hard to reconcile with psychism because the comic elements keep getting in the way and Tinh Lam uses sleeping pills, but it has poignant moments and is probably best viewed on a dull afternoon.  

The Young Shaman is one of several movies in the series Land of Spirits.