Hello! Who is it?
Director: Jamie Luk
Year: 1994
Rating: 6.5
There is something
about beautiful but wrathful female ghosts dressed in red that is just plain
sexy. Troublesome Night 6 had such a spectral figure and so does this one.
Female ghosts just look very enticing in red. If ever one comes after me,
I hope it has the good taste to wear this color. Besides the red dress, there
isn’t much else in terms of special effects in this low budget supernatural
film – but once it gets going it does manage to be fairly entertaining.
The film falls into that special genre of
HK films – women seeking revenge against their rapists – except in this instance
she does it after she is dead. To a large extent I have a problem with the
number of HK films that depict rape – and in particular in the way in which
the filmmakers often make it seem that this is an act that so many men have
no problem committing. I find this thought somewhat insulting, but also find
it to be lazy and unimaginative filmmaking. This film does go down that road
– but at least it also shows the effects that the rape and murder have on
this woman and her family. There is one surprisingly emotional scene (in the
context of much of the film) when the dead woman visits her elderly mother
and pours out her anger, pain and sadness about what has happened to her.
Even though the film is basically a ghost seeking revenge film, it does -
even if superficially - have certain sociological and psychological aspects
that make it a more interesting film than you might expect.
Anita Lee does not have a very easy life as she has to take care of her
elderly wheelchair bound mother (Helen Law Lan) and a son who is in the hospital
with a kidney disease that is killing him. To earn the money to take care
of them she has turned to prostitution but she hates the work and hates the
men she has to service. One evening on her way home, she runs into a customer
and he demands that she has sex with him and his three telephone service co-workers.
When she refuses, they get angry and rape her - and in the process
accidentally kill her. They bury her body – walk away – have no remorse whatsoever
– and feel that is the end of it. No such chance.
One by one they start being gruesomely murdered – by malevolent telephone
wires. She was buried underground where the phone lines are and is able to
use them to track down and haunt her killers. She can call them on the phone
no matter where they are and tell them she is coming for them. In one clever
scene one of the men is running out into the street to get away from the phone
– and all of a sudden everyone’s cell phone around him starts ringing and
there is a voice on each asking for him.
Lau Ching-Wan who happened to have been her upstairs neighbor is a cop and
is assigned the case. He has also started taking care of the mother because
the daughter only rarely appears. Eventually, he realizes that this woman
is a ghost (the fact that she never changes her clothes should have tipped
him off much earlier!) and that she is killing these men. He feels he must
stop her – even if they did commit this horrific act. She doesn’t intend to
be stopped.
The film is marred a bit by some silly comedy performed by minor characters
and a juvenile romance between Lau and a female co-worker – but the main thrust
of the film gets more interesting and complex as it progresses – and by the
end the viewer is quite caught up by the fates of this woman and her family.
