Horoscope I: The Voice from
Hell
Director: Steve Cheng
Year: 1999
Rating: 7.0
First, I have to
say that Athena Chu looks great in green – as in her skin color. It seems
that green is the preferred color of choice when ghosts possess you. There
are lots of other fun facts to learn regarding the afterlife in this tale
of spirits and revenge. Though there is nothing here that will have you looking
under your bed before going to sleep, it strikes an enjoyable combination
of supernatural thrills and comedic hijinks.
Unlike many of Wong Jing’s films though, the comedy never really gets so
silly that it deflects from the main story. And how could you not find Helen
Law Lan lying comatose with a toad in her mouth and Lam Song-yee having
to suck the breath out of a cockroach and kiss Auntie in order to bring
her back to life anything but funny.
The film begins with a prologue in which
a real estate agent is showing an apartment in a public housing building to
a couple. They complain that the walls are still wet and the agent begins
visibly perspiring. Suddenly they are among two ghosts who are replaying the
last moments of their lives. The wife (Pinky Cheung) gets a call from her
husband to get out of the apartment quickly as someone is coming to kill her
and their son. They try, but the door has been chained and she and the boy
are then burnt to death. For some reason, the prospective tenants don’t take
the apartment. I would have thought with housing as tight as it is in HK,
a small thing like sharing it with two ghosts would not be a problem.
Athena Chu is a psychiatry student who volunteers her time to help old
people. One of her cases is Aunt Szeto – played by the wonderfully creepy
Helen Law Lan. She is a psychic and communicates with the dead and Athena
thinks she is just a phony until she too starts seeing spirits. One is a
little girl crying tears of blood and the other is a small boy. It turns
out that Auntie lives in the same apartment building as the two ghosts.
The mother ghost is looking for revenge on her husband for getting her killed
and she needs a body to possess to do this. As she says later after possessing
Athena’s body “I like this body”. Me too.
There are nice acting jobs all around. Athena follows up on her excellent
performance in HK Triad with a good job here – in particular in her possessed
phase. But Law Lan steals the film with a great job. She just commands your
attention. One scene in which she is in a trance and goes from kung-fu kicker
to a squalling baby is inspired. There are some other good supporting roles
performed by Ng Chi-hung, Yuen King-tan, Simon Lui and Lam Song-yee.
An easy way to spend 90 minutes – a few chills and a few laughs and actually
an ending that is quite moody, suspenseful and a bit chilling.