The Occupant
"Valentino" Chow: Chow Yun-Fat
Handsome Wong: Raymond Wong
Angie: Sally Yeh
directed by: Ronnie Yu
IMDb link: IMDb link: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0087625
other links:
Version reviewed: DVD
Ratings:
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DVD Audio: 8 of 10
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DVD Video: 7 of 10
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Subtitles: 8 of 10
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Story: 4 of 10
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Performances: 5 of 10
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CYF: 4 of 10
This film was released in 1984. That was the same year of Hong Kong 1941 and
Love In A Fallen City. Three films, two classics. And this.
CYF has often mentioned the practice, rampant in the '80s, of working on more than
one film in the same day. It's pretty obvious that he was filming Hong Kong
1941 simultaneously with The Occupant; not even his hairstyle differs from
one film to the other. What does differ is the quality of the film and of his
performance, but then again not only would filming an intense drama such as Hong Kong
1941 be emotionally draining, but imagine the thought of having to act in this
turkey after your primary work day was done. It must have seemed about as attractive as
the prospect of wrapping up a concert at Carnegie Hall to pull a few shifts at McDonald's.
The Occupant is a quickie comedy/thriller that uses none of its stars to
even an ounce of their abilities. Even Raymond Wong loafs through this film. Chow
Yun-Fat seems appears and annoyed by turns and Sally Yeh seems good-natured if a little
vacant. A scant, trite plot doesn't help matters.
That's not to say there aren't some watchable scenes in the film. Most of them,
surprisingly, belong to Raymond Wong. While he and Chow Yun-Fat have a screen chemistry
quotient which hovers around zero, when he is playing off Sally Yeh's Angie he doesn't
do badly at all. When Handsome takes Angie on a guided tour of places to photograph for
her thesis on Chinese superstition, there are some genuinely amusing scenes with his
innocently acerbic commentary overriding it all.
The basic plot is that Angie, a Canadian college student in Hong Kong to research
Chinese superstitions, becomes fascinated with the dead woman who once lived in
Angie's rented flat. Both of the men in her life, Handsome Wong the real estate agent/used
car salesman and "Valentino" Chow the cop, believe in ghosts and such things to various
degrees. After an incident in Angie's apartment which convinces both men it is
haunted, they visit a friend of Chow's who is a specialist in the paranormal. He tells
Angie that if she becomes afraid, she is to pray to her deity for guidance. When Chow,
to further the plot along, asks what would happen if she prays to the evil spirit...
well, of course that's about the worst thing she could do and sure enough Angie runs
right home and breaks out the candles before you can say "Exorcist".
The romantic rivalry between Handsome and Valentino is supposed to be funny, but comes
across as more mean-spirited than anything. Chow threatens Wong with brass knuckles,
Wong spits coffee in Chow's face, Chow tricks Wong into appearing in drag, etc etc. The
humor here is as light as leftover gravy, and about as appetizing.
Woven into the sight gags are a few "scary" sequences, which tend to be of the
table-moves-on-its-own variety, glimpses of an ethereal woman in a frilly
nightgown, and Sally Yeh in streetwalker getup.
As a general rule, I don't like horror/thriller films as they are usually like
this one: cheap toss-off pictures which are badly written. There are some
exceptions, Spiritual Love being one of CYF's better ones. The Occupant
is better than, say, Scared Stiff but then again, so is watching a videotape of
the Home Shopping Club Cubic Zirconia Special from three months ago.
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