24 (2021)

Should You Watch 24 or Skip It?

If you need a conventional narrative with a clear beginning, middle, and end, skip this one entirely. 24 is a deeply unconventional piece of Singaporean cinema — it drifts, observes, and accumulates meaning rather than building toward a plot. But if you're drawn to experimental work that treats death as a lens for exploring the living world, this is a genuinely rare and rewarding experience. Royston Tan's vision is patient, strange, and quietly affecting. It rewards viewers who are willing to surrender to its rhythm rather than fight it.

What Does 24 Actually Feel Like to Watch?

Watching 24 feels like drifting through a dream you can't quite hold onto. There's no urgency, no dramatic tension in the traditional sense — just a series of vividly rendered spaces and the quiet presence of a man who no longer belongs to the world of the living. Some segments are tender, some unsettling, some darkly funny. The film moves at its own unhurried pace, and the cumulative effect is something closer to meditation than storytelling. By the end, you're not sure exactly what you've witnessed — but it lingers.

What Kind of Viewer Will Enjoy 24?

This film is made for viewers who love cinema as a sensory and philosophical experience rather than a story delivery system. If you've enjoyed the work of directors like Apichatpong Weerasethakul or early Tsai Ming-liang — films that prioritize atmosphere over action — 24 will feel like familiar territory. Fans of Royston Tan's earlier work will find this one of his most personal and formally adventurous films. Where it might lose you: there's no emotional anchor character to follow in a conventional sense. But if that's not a dealbreaker, this delivers something genuinely distinctive.

Who Should NOT Watch 24?

Walk away if you need plot momentum to stay engaged — 24 offers almost none. Viewers who find experimental or art-house cinema frustrating rather than freeing will likely feel adrift here. The film also includes a segment set on the production of a gay pornographic film, which may be uncomfortable for some audiences. If you're looking for a conventional drama, a thriller, or anything with a traditional three-act structure, this is genuinely not the film for you.

Is 24 Confusing or Easy to Follow?

24 is not confusing in the way a puzzle-box thriller is confusing — there's no mystery to solve. But it is deliberately non-linear and associative, moving between environments without explanation or connective tissue. The premise is simple enough: a dead man passes through twenty-four spaces. What those spaces mean, and why they were chosen, is left entirely open. Go in accepting that ambiguity and the film becomes absorbing. Try to decode it like a riddle and you'll exhaust yourself for no reward.

What to Watch If You Liked 24?

If 24 clicked for you, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind explores memory and loss with a similarly fragmented emotional logic. Under the Silver Lake shares that same drifting, dreamlike quality with a darker edge. For something closer in spirit to Royston Tan's Southeast Asian sensibility, seek out Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Cemetery of Splendour — it inhabits a very similar space between the living and the dead. All three reward patience and repay a second watch.