Cold Souls (2009) Hey what's up guys. Today I'll show
you a science-fiction drama film: "Cold Souls"! Spoiler ahead, watch out and take care!
The movie begins with an actor named Paul, reciting his lines from the script with such
passion and emotion; but eventually, he channels the wrong emotion. The director makes him stop
and tells Paul to take a break. He explains the presence he should be demonstrating is one of
the carefree and light-hearted feelings, and not of anger and resentment.
The scene cuts to a montage of Paul's daily life. He walks the streets of the city,
sits in his car in traffic, eats dinner outside in a decent restaurant, and he ends his day
with a cigarette on his apartment balcony. The next day, Paul relaxes in his living room,
reading a book called the secret life of monsters. He listens to a radio drama,
but can't stand the voice acting, and stands up to drink his medicine.
In the airport immigration, a blonde Russian woman is stopped by security. She tells the
security guard her purpose for the visit is for heart surgery, and they let her through.
Later in her hotel room, it turns out that she is wearing a wig to hide her black hair. She
washes her face and drinks her medicine. In the evening, Paul finds it hard to sleep;
so he leaves his bedroom to read in the living room instead. He finds an interesting
article in a magazine, claiming to unburden people's life by removing
a person's soul from their body. Paul laughs and searches the phone book. To his disbelief,
a clinic called soul storage does exist. During dinner, the blonde Russian woman stops
eating, and rushes back to her hotel room. She lays down on the bed, and sees glimpses
and flashbacks of a baby in a delivery room. The next day, Paul visits the soul storage, to
find out if what they are advertising is true. He asks the guard where the soul storage is, and he
points Paul to the 4th floor. He answers a survey first before he can see the doctor. He notices the
blonde Russian woman talking to the concierge. She asks for some aspirin. The concierge then tells
Paul that the doctor is now ready to see him. The doctor asks him about the way he discovered
the clinic. He tells the doctor that he found it through the magazine article, which led him to
the clinic. He reveals to the doctor that he finds that something is missing in his soul,
leading him to struggle with his recent role. He also tells the doctor that he has been struggling
to separate himself from his characters, leading to more confusion. The doctor tells him that
many geniuses often don't realize their potential, because they are tied down by something. He offers
Paul a way to solve the twisted and confused part of his soul. Paul refuses to believe in
what the doctor is saying, and tells the doctor he doesn't need to be happy. Rather, He only needs
to remove the suffering. The doctor manages to convince Paul, and gets him to sign a clause.
Paul gets ready to enter the machine that will be separating his soul from his body. He enters
the machine, and the doctor tells him to relax and breathe normally. He explains to Paul that
his subconscious will stay intact, as his soul will be separated from the body. They
power the machine, which locks Paul in place. After the procedure, Paul doesn't feel much change
in his body or in his soul. The couple beside him asks if he is already feeling the effects;
but he simply says that nothing is happening. The concierge leads him inside a hamster ball-like
machine, where it can simulate whether or not the effects work. The machine locks Paul inside, and
plays him a song of a Russian woman. The machine then brings out a rabbit, and shows Paul other
pictures to get a reaction from Paul's soul. Later, the doctor reveals to Paul that they
extracted at least 95 percent of his soul, which is enough to keep his body animated. Paul tells
the doctor that he feels hollow and lighter inside. He answers that what he's feeling is
normal. Paul prepares to sign the contract for the storage of his soul. He hands the doctor
the tube containing his soul, and he looks away nervously, because he's afraid to see what it
looks like. The doctor is amazed that his soul is tiny like the earwax, but weighs heavily on
Paul. Paul asks the doctor if all of this is a joke, because the tube is empty. In his rage,
he accidentally pops the tube open, which makes his soul pop out. The doctor tells Paul not to
move, and safely secures the tiny soul. Paul gets the keys to the storage, and places
his soul inside. He comes back home, and senses all kinds of peculiarities in himself. He is
not as sickly and messy as he was before, and he feels that he has lost some weight as well.
The next morning, Paul walks to work, preparing himself for rehearsals. During the rehearsal,
the director stops Paul midway through his part, and asks if one of the actors is bothering him,
making his performance seem off. The blonde Russian woman named Nina,
turns out to be a soul mule, who steals other people's souls. Her boss tells her
that she needs to fill a new quota, to keep up with the demands from the higher-ups.
Nina travels to different parts of Russia, convincing people to get their souls stored,
and promising them relief from pain and suffering. In fact, A long line of people waited for Nina,
all of them wanting to receive their souls back. She tells them that it is not possible because
they signed a clause, giving them no power over the storage of their souls. Nina travels back
to her apartment after a long day of work. Paul's wife asks him about the progress of his
role; but he tells her not to talk about it. She remarks that his skin feels different,
and that it's scalier. They get ready to go out for dinner with their friends, but his wife begins
to feel that something is off with Paul. During dinner, Paul feels out of it,
and starts spilling food on the table and spilling salt all over. Paul accidentally
says something harsh to their friend, which cuts the dinner short. On the car ride home,
his wife gets mad at him for embarrassing their friend. Paul defends himself by saying that he
had no intention of hurting her feelings. She asks Paul what has been happening to him lately.
The scene then transitions to Paul during another rehearsal. Paul acts with much more emotion,
but this makes the actors in the scene feel uncomfortable. The actress with Paul during
the scene starts to feel uncomfortable with Paul's physical demonstration in the rehearsal,
which prompts her to leave immediately. The director tells Paul that they need to talk. He
tells Paul that the play is fast approaching, and that he needs to get it together or else.
Paul comes back to the soul storage, and complains to the doctor that he cannot go
through with it anymore. He says that he cannot feel anything inside. The doctor tells him the
things he is feeling are common side effects; but how he's feeling inside is all up to him,
since each and every soul is unique. The doctor offers Paul a solution: they can import a soul
from a creative individual or even a Russian soul to solve his problem in acting. The doctor
then tells Paul that the soul transfer works to a certain extent, but if he cannot bear it anymore;
then he can import a new soul. Later, Paul is led to a room, where he
chooses from a catalog of souls. Meanwhile, Nina gets a soul imported from the doctor,
but is told that because of all the soul importing that has happened to her body, the fragments of
those souls will soon add up to affect her body negatively, which could be very dangerous.
Paul chooses the soul of a Russian Poet, and decides to rent it for 2 weeks. He enters the
machine again, this time more comfortable with the procedure. On the way home from the clinic, he
notices Nina beside him, but pays her no mind. During the last rehearsal, Paul performs his
scenes better because of the soul import, which surprises
the rest of the cast and the director. Paul tries hard to sleep again that night,
but fails. He goes outside instead, and takes a taxi to a Russian motel. He checks in on one of
the rooms, and decides to spend the night there. He examines the toiletries and the rest of the
room, before going to sleep. He even sees memories of the soul that was imported to him. He wakes up
the next morning, wondering what he saw. He walks down the beach early in the morning,
but returns to the hotel, still wondering about the memories he saw
last night. He comes back home to his wife. On the other side, Nina is pressured by her boss
and the higher-ups, to find a way to secure famous souls to help the mistress of her boss in her
acting career. She goes back to the soul storage, where she waits for the concierge to leave, before
she accesses the data on the souls that could be stolen. By accident, She steals Paul's soul,
because she finds the donor is an actor. Meanwhile, Paul comes back to the clinic,
to tell the doctor that he wants to get his soul back, because The memories of the soul
donor are too overwhelming for Paul. He asks the doctor about the donor; but he tells Paul that he
cannot reveal anything, because they are donated anonymously from Russia. The doctor reveals that
soul trafficking is a big business in Russia. Paul goes down to the storage area to find his
soul; but he opens his locker to find the tube missing. He panics and calls the doctor
and the concierge to help. The doctor tells him that it is possible to grow a soul from
the remaining 5 percent, which has not been taken from him during the soul transfer.
Meanwhile, Nina gives the stolen tube to her boss; but his mistress is disgusted by
the size of the earwax-like soul. Nina tells her that she should not judge it by its appearance,
because it is a beautiful soul. After the handover, she goes to a movie store,
and buys a film with Paul starring in it. Paul tries to sleep, but once again finds it
hard. He asks his wife if she would love him even if he was no longer himself. She is surprised by
the question, and asks why. He reveals to her that he had his soul extracted, but his soul
got stolen. He tells her that he rented the soul of a Russian poet; but now his soul has
gone missing, and he doesn't know what to do. Paul returns to the clinic, but is told that no
news about his stolen soul has arrived. The doctor gives him medicine for the 5 percent of his soul
to slowly grow. The doctor tells Paul that the souls are trafficked from Russia to America, using
Russian Women as mules to store the souls. He also gives him the name and address of Nina.
Later that night, he goes to the Russian hotel, and confronts Nina. She tells him that his soul
is in Russia because of her boss and his mistress. They come from a wealthy family,
but they have no talent, which is why they go out looking for creative souls. Nina
tells him that they needed the soul of a famous actor to improve the mistress' acting skills;
but instead, she took his soul because it was the only one she found at that time.
After that, Paul leaves his wife, and flies to Russia on a mission to get his soul back.
He spends most of his time wandering around the hotel with nothing to do. Nina takes him
to the place, where she transports souls to America. The boss became angry with
Nina for bringing Paul there. The boss invites Paul for a drink,
and explains the situation to him. He demands his soul back, but the boss simply laughs at him. The
boss budges and tells him that Nina will take him around the city, and they must convince the
mistress to hand over the soul back to him. Nina and Paul instead follow the boss' mistress
around the city and into a hair salon. They reveal to the mistress that the soul does not belong to
a famous actor, but rather to the shitty Paul himself. She storms out angrily, and leaves the
two of them before Paul can say anything. Back at the hotel, Paul mopes, saying that his
life is ruined by the loss of his own soul. Nina tells Paul that his soul wasn't empty,
but rather beautiful in its own way. In the morning, the two of them embark on
a journey to find out the true identity of the soul donor, whose soul was imported to
Paul. They ask around the place she works, but is told that two weeks ago, the soul donor committed
suicide because she could not get back her soul. During a party that the mistress was attending,
they manage to sedate her, and bring her back to the factory with the machine for transferring
souls. They take back Paul's soul, and use a special kind of goggles to look through his soul,
and familiarize himself with it once again. With that done, Paul goes back to America and
returns to his wife. He visits the clinic one more time, and finds out that the military is claiming
their technology, and most of the untransferred souls are being given to a hedge fund. He tries to
recover the soul of Nina. but due to her taking so many souls throughout the years and being affected
by the soul fragments left inside her body, it's impossible for Nina to take her own soul back,
and now she's looking hollow in her mind. The movie ends with Paul walking along the beach,
accompanying Nina like an old friend as the sun sets ahead of them.
This's Daniel CC movie channel! Stay safe and enjoy your day!