Circle Line (2023): Singapore’s first creature feature, Circle Line (2023), finally makes its debut this year after being delayed from its original 2020 release due to the pandemic. Although the film borrows from superior horror features like Bong Joon-ho’s The Host (2006), Christopher Smith’s Creep (2004), and Yeon Sang-ho’s Train To Busan (2016), it struggles to maintain tension or elicit dread despite a promising set-up.
In this article, we examine the film and throw light on some of its unanswered questions, most prominently the creature’s origin in the narrative. A spoiler alert for the film!
Circle Line (2023) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Circle Line begins in 2003 when a young, sick boy looks at his lizard-like pet in its small glass tank. We then move two decades later—as a group of engineers ponders over the recent train breakdowns occurring in the subway.
Meanwhile, our protagonist Yi Ling (Jesseca Liu), boards the last train with her son, Lucas (Nathaniel Ng), to return home after work. Along the way, Yi has disturbing visions about the car accident which killed her husband and deeply traumatized Lucas, rendering him mute.
Joining the bunch of passengers is also Janice (Ashley Seow), a high school student who also happens to be the daughter of Mr. Bo Seng (Peter Yu), the chief subway engineer. Suddenly, due to a strange accident, the train moves away from its original path and takes a different route, eventually crashing near an unfinished track above which an old hospital was demolished.
As the staff in the subway system above struggle to locate the train amidst technical failure and bureaucratic interventions, the passengers soon realize that the accident was the least of their worries when a monstrous creature attacks them.
What Happens To The Passengers Inside The Train?
As the worried passengers in the tube wait for help to arrive, one opens the gate and ventures out into the tunnel. A large lizard-like creature suddenly attacks him. While the injured man manages to enter the train, the creature follows and breaks through the glass to kill him.
The creature makes its way inside and spends a moment looking at Lucas before it is distracted by a passenger who hits it with a fire extinguisher. Exasperated by the attack, the creature attacks everyone inside the train. Yi, Lucas, Janice, and one helpful man, Nam (Patrick Pei-hsu Lee), manage to escape from the train and run into the dark tunnels while the creature massacres everyone inside.
What Do The Authorities Decide To Do About The Train?
While the survivors struggle to escape from the creatures, the authorities in the control room probe over methods to locate the train. Bo Seng contacts his superiors to send a rescue team to help the survivors. They refuse, citing the lack of proof about the survivors below. Fed up with this bureaucratic greed, Bo Seng decides to himself venture down into the subway.
Meanwhile, the survivors are attacked by the creature, who ends up killing Nam. Lucas and Yi escape while Janice tries to help Nam. Before the creature can attack Janice, Bo Seng shows up and hits it with an axe. Intimidated by the weapon, the creature leaves the father and daughter.
On the other hand, Yi and Lucas are attacked by the monster. As the creature is about to kill Yi, Lucas finally utters the word ‘Ma’—breaking his silence from the trauma of the accident. Seeing Lucas, the creature spares Yi and grabs the young boy instead. Yi is horrified and rushes after the creature to save her son.
What Exactly Is The Creature, and Why Does It Take Lucas?
While the film does not elucidate much about the creature’s origins, it does spare some clues to hint at the creature’s presence in the subway. At the film’s beginning, we see a seemingly sick child looking at its pet lizard-like creature in a reptile tank. From the opening credits, we learn that the child’s father (a doctor) was determined to find a cure for his son’s illness—which might be the reason why he was experimenting on different creatures.
The lizard-like monster in the film was probably a result of some hybrid experimentation that the doctor undertook. The creature was probably discarded in the tunnel below when the hospital was closed. Since the construction was also stalled in that area, the creature found a perfect lair to grow and thrive.
Hence, when the creature sees Lucas—he is supposedly reminded of the young boy who looked after it in childhood. This is why the creature takes Lucas into its lair and does not harm him as it did other human beings.
What Happens To Janice and Her Father?
Janice suggests that she and her father rescue Yi and Lucas, but her father dissuades her from pursuing this course of action, deeming it too dangerous. Bo Seng suggests that the two leave and get help—Janice is reluctant but agrees. The creature appears just as the two of them are climbing a ladder to escape. Realizing that the creature will kill them both, Bo Seng uses the axe to block the exit as Janice escapes. In the process, Bo Seng sacrifices himself to save his daughter. A grieved Janice escapes and calls the rescue team for help.
How Does Yi Rescue Lucas and Defeat The Creature?
As Yi rushes to save her son, she lands inside the creature’s lair—which happens to be an abandoned construction site where another subway route was supposed to be made. Using a key, Yi starts a generator and lights up the entire area. With the illumination, Yi sees a tunnel-like area leading inside a sewer. As she steps inside, she sees many of the creature’s tiny offspring. As she fights them off, Yi finds Lucas and rescues him.
Just as the duo is escaping, the mother creature steps inside the lair. As the mother creature is distracted by the cries of her children, Lucas steps inside an old truck on the site. The creature lunges after them, but Yi vows that she will not let anything separate her from Lucas. As the creature proceeds to terrorize Lucas inside the car, Yi sees some fuel leaking from a tank. She uses a light stand to ignite a fire leading into the sewer where the creature’s offspring are present. The fire causes an explosion, and the creature jumps inside the fire to save its children.
Meanwhile, Yi and Lucas take refuge inside the car, and Yi reassures her son that she will not let anything happen to him. After a while, the rescue team finds the two of them and takes them to the hospital. We also see Yi tightly clutching her son’s toy car in her hand, symbolic of her attachment to him.
Circle Line
(2023) Movie Ending, Explained:
Is The Creature Still Alive?
Following this incident, we jump to three months later. Outside the district court, we follow two subway staff conversing. It is revealed that the government burnt the tunnel and classified the entire carnage as a gas leak incident to prevent mass hysteria about the creature. We also see Janice and her family mourning the death of her father.
In the film’s final sequence, we follow a sewer beneath a busy road where the creature’s seemingly dead body is lying. As the camera pans over its lifeless body, the screen suddenly cuts to black—implying that the creature might still be alive.
