Finale in Blood
Director: Fruit Chan
Year: 1993
Rating: 6.0
I am not really sure what to make of this Hong Kong film.
At times it felt like an art film, at other times a goofy comedy. If you
are a Hong Kong film fan, you of course have to get used to a film careening
wildly between various genres like bumper cars. If you can't, take a right
and head back to Hollywood. This one has some of that as it jumps back and
forth between being a tragic melodramatic ghost film and silly comedy - but
I could never quite adapt to it - the tragic part was fairly compelling but
the comic bits just felt so jarring that I found it irritating. Just stick
to the ghost story.
To my surprise this was directed by Fruit Chan as his second film (the first
being the completely unknown to me Five Lonely Hearts in 1992). It is beautifully
shot with wonderful framing, interesting sets, moody atmospherics and eye-catching
use of colors. Perhaps Tony Au who is the producer and in other films a very
fine art director lent a friendly eye and the cinematographer was Peter Ngor
who was behind the camera for many great films - As Tears Go By, Days of
Being Wild, C'est La Vie Mon Cherie. So Chan certainly had some terrific
support behind him but not so much from his actors who are fine but don't
bring a lot of pizzazz to the film.
Apparently, it didn't do box office magic even though distributed by Golden
Harvest - because Chan was not able to direct another film for four years
in 1997. But when he came back though he took on the mantle of an independent
auteur with a series of five stunning low budget dramatic films that were
unlike anything else coming out of Hong Kong. These were Made in Hong Kong,
The Longest Summer, Durian Durian, Little Cheung and Hollywood Hong Kong
using unknown actors to reveal the lives among the working class and disaffected
youth.
Finale in Blood could not have been much different in style and choice of
subject from his future films. It begins in almost film noir style with a
woman getting out of a taxi in the pouring rain - her attire hinting that
this is taking place in the 1940's perhaps - she walks into a building with
the umbrella dripping behind her and she walks carefully up the stairs. The
next thing we know is that she comes crashing out of a window to the ground
below with the umbrella slowly floating down beside her. A great beginning.
Next we jump to the character played by everyman Lawrence Cheng who is a
reader of food prices on the radio and looking for some extra money. This
gets him into a situation where he ends up in the Hong Kong Harbor hiding
from the cops and grabs an umbrella floating next to him. The umbrella of
the dead woman (Tiu Gwan-mei) whose ghost sort of adopts him. She needs his
help for revenge against the man responsible (David Wu) for her death. Cheng
ends up telling her story on the radio which sort of freaks out Wu and his
girlfriend (Aoyama Chikako) who thankfully displays her rather special assets
as she had in Robotrix. Slowly the story creeps out of what led to her death
but interspersed in this sad tale is Cheng acting like an idiot and patches
of slapstick comedy - though admittedly the finale with everyone trying to
kill everyone is quite fun. Also of note is Josephine Koo as the woman that
Cheng wants to date but who has her doubts about him when they go dig up
the ghost's body and take it back between them on a motorcycle.
