Ann Hui’s horror-comedy is at best an odd curiosity, a way too convoluted genre exercise that still manages to flaunt its film language, as Shu Qi plays a woman who can see ghosts.
Review #2,821
Dir. Ann Hui
2001 | Hong Kong | Drama, Horror, Comedy | 98 min | 1.85:1 | Cantonese
NC16 (passed clean) for some disturbing scenes and coarse language
Cast: Eason Chan, Shu Qi, Sam Lee, James Wong, Kara Wai
Plot: A man develops a relationship with a mysterious woman who sees ghosts.
Awards: Won 1 HKFilm Award – Best Cinematography; Nom. for 3 HK Film Awards – Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, Best Sound Design
Distributor: Media Asia
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Supernatural Ability; Mysterious Woman; Bad Romance
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Slightly Mainstream
Viewed: Oldham Theatre (as part of Asian Film Archive’s ‘Divine’ programme)
Spoilers: No
This screams early 2000s Asian horror vibes like The Eye (2002). Made a year earlier, Visible Secret has a similar concept: a woman can see ghosts. Her name is June, played by Shu Qi who often puts on a pair of cool shades so that she won’t see those nasty things.
But they keep appearing at inopportune moments and Peter (Eason Chan), who has a one-night stand with her one drunken night, has to contend with this mysterious if seductive lady who inexplicably drifts in and out of his life.
Directed by Ann Hui as a commercial genre exercise of sorts, Visible Secret is way too overly plotted and convoluted to make any sense—I found myself dissociating from the narrative after a while, and trying my luck being engaged by its film language instead.
There is a lot to appreciate though for how Hui uses the camera (some fast-paced canted tracking shots remind of, say, the ‘Evil Dead’ movies) and editing tricks that intensify scenes with demonic possession.
“Is she possessed?”
Visible Secret isn’t an all-out horror movie, though it can be frightening when it needs to be, particularly the use of misdirection and startling sounds.
It also straddles into dark comedy with some typical horror scenes playing out for laughs. (That sequence with a possessed Kara Wai encapsulates best the tone of Hui’s work.)
At best an odd curiosity, Visible Secret has a quaint interest in familial relationships. Peter has to contend with his estranged father, who is ill, while June’s arc has more than one revelation to spare.
While it might be too absurd to draw allegories with the post-Hong Kong handover of ’97, the many ‘haunted’ spaces that these characters find themselves in—and return to—tell us of unresolved, shifting identities marked by rootlessness. The restless demons that adorn this picture would know best.
Grade: B-
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 