The Guest(不速之客) Chinese Film Thoughts

  I ordered this film purely based on the fact that I wanted to watch more native Chinese films this year and the film's trailer looked promising.  The Guest was directed by Im Dae Woong and has a cast of Leon Lai and Geng Le.

  A taxi driver helps a drunk man get home and they start to see each other often. Soon murders start happening around the man and his girlfriend. The taxi driver then arrives at their apartment door to make his way in......

  I thought the plot was going to be deeper than it turned out to be. The beginning of the film opens well to introduce a complexed character that viewers want to know more about. Then we're introduced to a man and his girlfriend who are renting out an apartment that still feels creepy even though it was remodeled. The apartment is creepy and so are the people who live next door. The fashion in which all this qualities of the plot are introduced makes you think that they have a connection to each other and the mysterious character. I got out my mental marker and was ready to connect the dots. Things move on and get more intense but all the dots that this film's plot creates are never connected. Films about psycho murderers breaking into other people's homes have been done before so take the concept and add a new twist to it. The question of why was answered in a satisfactory way but all the other lose ends are kicked under the rug. A better reason for the creation of the killer and the killings could have been penned for this script. Instead we get a more mediocre solution. The ending was even more pathetic. I hate ending where text is put on a black screen to explain to the audience what happened. Leave this method for historical films or ones that go toward that kind of feel.

  Leon Lai and Geng Le's scenes together are the saving grace of The Guest. Their chemistry was perfect for the plot line and the set up of this film. I actually didn't want their scenes together to end because it was the most interesting thing about this film. Even more interesting than the killings.

  I liked observing the shots here. Especially the landscape ones. That fast forward effect editors do on a scene that they film all day till the sun goes down then they take the footage and fast forward it. You see the events of the day in a matter of a few seconds. Cars moving along with people and the sun going down in the sky.

  Since The Guest had too many plot issues with introducing things that didn't help support the full picture, I felt like I wasted my money buying this on DVD. Leon Lai's other film, The Secret is a much better film. There's a post I wrote about this film on here to if you want to check it out.