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THE
OCCUPANT (1984)
Reviewed
by Pat King
Angie
(Sally Yeh) arrives in Hong Kong to do a thesis on Chinese
superstition. As she can’t afford the local hotel rates she
rents a flat from Hansom Wong (Raymond Wong). Coincidentally
Hansom is highly superstitious and takes the liberty of giving
her a tour of everything superstitious in Hong Kong. He does
of course have a hidden agenda as he has been quite taken in
by Angie and constantly makes unsubtle advances. It soon
becomes apparent that the reason the flat is so cheap is
because it haunted and Hansom finds himself thrown out of the
window by the ghost. His fall is broken by a neighbours car
which in turn gets broken by his fall. As a result the police
are summoned and the officer called to the scene is Valentino
Chow (Chow Yun Fat). Valentino also becomes interested in
Angie and a rivalry with Hansom ensues. Angie becomes
interested in the concept of this ghost as she thinks it will
make great material for her thesis, so she starts to
investigate the history of the previous resident. Valentino
worried for her safety takes her to see spiritual advisor Chan
(Lo Lieh). However Angie takes it upon herself to go against
his advice which only puts her in more danger than she could
have conceived.
'The
Occupant' doesn’t appear to be sure if it wants to be a
horror or a comedy as while it is genuinely funny, this does
tend to undermine the horror elements. Though firmly rooted in
Chinese superstition,
it often has a slightly western quality. It is
therefore no surprise that the director is Ronny Yu whose
earlier film 'The
Postman Fights Back', gave a genuine western feel to a
Kung Fu film.
'The
Occupant' ambles along fairly nicely without ever wowing the
audience. We are however subjected to a twist ending which
could have lingered in the mind long after the end credits had
finished rolling. Sadly this is made redundant by the
insertion of an epilogue intended to give it an upbeat ending.
Chow
gives another quality performance as indeed does Yeh. Raymond
Wong is nauseating, which seems to be a role Wong is very good
at playing. Lo Lieh makes a pleasantly surprising turn as the
spiritual advisor showing himself to be more versatile than
his usual roles of simply playing kung fu villains and
gangsters.
A
fairly standard comedy/horror sadly ruined by the upbeat
epilogue.
Rating:
 
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