After tons of closed doors and colleagues who’ve deemed his case impossible, he uses his last funds on a plane ticket to Kamar-Taj, Nepal. There, he finds a sect of sorcerers lead by a woman simply known as the Ancient One – their mastery over the mystic arts and the spirit could hold the key to Strange’s recovery. As he studies under the Ancient One, however, an old pupil of hers named Kaecilius reappears. He hopes to conjure up a forbidden power in exchange for eternal life, and at the cost of reality as we know it. This forces Strange to realize that the power he’s been given holds great responsibility. A disappearance resets the narrative tone completely, as the movie turns increasingly sinister, morbid, and far away from the restrained emotions of the first half. Long workshops and rehearsals prior to shooting enabled the actresses, all making their big-screen debuts, to seem like people who have genuinely known each other for a long time. That Hamaguchi then pushes that group