The Great Hypnotist 2014

In this psychological drama, Dr. Xu Ruining is a prominent psychiatrist who uses hypnotherapy to help his patients. His mentor, Professor Fang, recommends a patient, Ren Xiaoyan who claims she can see ghosts. Ruining agrees to treat her, despite learning from a colleague who once treated her that there is something unsettling about her.

During the first sessions, Ruining discovers that she may be fabricating parts of her story. He reaches out to a friend at child services and learns the backstory: Ren Xiaoyan was abandoned by her adoptive mother after a pregnancy, then taken in by a foster family. Yet Ruining soon realizes she is not simply lying; she has suppressed her darkest memories by crafting these tales.

A tense game of cat and mouse unfolds as Ruining tries to disprove Ren Xiaoyan’s narratives with the evidence he uncovers. The situation shifts when Xiaoyan reveals that she has been seeing two people, a man and a woman, in his chambers since she arrived. Ruining then opens up about a car crash into a river that claimed the lives of his lover and his best friend. Xiaoyan tells him that ghosts have forgiven him and urge him to remember their forgiveness as he wakes up. Ruining collapses to the floor, and his assistant rushes to his side.

Ultimately, it is revealed that Ren Xiaoyan was really “The Great Hypnotist”, and was working with Professor Fang, Ruining’s family, and his staff to cure Ruining of post-traumatic guilt that had driven him toward suicide. After Ruining awakens, everyone except Xiaoyan goes to see him, and a flashback reveals that Ruining’s best friend—also killed in the crash—was Ren Xiaoyan’s fiancé. Professor Fang tells Xiaoyan that she must also let it go.

In a final, quiet moment, Xiaoyan confesses that she does not want to be cured.