‘Organ Child’ (2025) Netflix Movie Review - Simple, Lean, and Exasperating

Zhang Qi-mao (Chang Hsiao-Chuan) is a kind baseball coach. He trains a group of orphaned children, spends quality time with his newborn daughter and wife, and, in one scene, the orphans join Qi-mao's family at the breakfast table, sitting together like one big happy family. However, we know this utopian happiness won't last, as the movie opens with a series of torture scenes. First, the manager of the orphanage is seen harassing a child. A few minutes later, Qi-mao's daughter is kidnapped, and then his wife commits suicide. A nurse makes an appointment with Qi-mao to disclose details regarding his daughter, but, of course, when Qi-mao reaches the venue, he finds her dead body. What's more, the police arrest Qi-mao, force him to confess to the nurse's murder, and send him to rot in prison. Who kidnapped the daughter? Who killed the nurse? Will Qi-mao get justice?
 

Director Chieh Shueh-bin is not a man of ideas, tone, or creativity. Organ Child is simple, lean, and exasperating. The story is straightforward, but Shueh-bin gives it a pinch of non-linearity by, for instance, first showing a man being electrocuted and then going back to reveal who that man is and why he is being electrocuted. Does this technique make the movie fresh, unpredictable, or exciting? Definitely not. The non-linear structure, in this case, sticks out as an ostentatious choice that tries to mask the movie's lack of originality in both substance and style. Shueh-bin could have told this story without breaking it into so many pieces, and it would still be as thin and dull as it currently is. Organ Child is just an ordinary revenge thriller. What it lacks is suspense and even primal fury. The characters are nothing more than a threadbare rope on which the director hangs a threadbare story. The real test of patience comes during the fourth chapter, when Shueh-bin—without giving us characters to care about—pours sentimentality onto the screen. I cried, all right, but only because I was bored out of my mind.

Final Score- [2.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times