“The Occupant” Chinese Theatrical Poster
Director: Ronny Yu
Cast: Chow Yun Fat, Raymond Wong, Sally Yeh, Lo Lieh, Mak Git Man, Mama Hung, Kenny Ho, Wellington Fung Wing, Leung Ga Git, Yiu Yau Hung, Melvin Wong
Running Time: 95 min.
By Numskull
One paragraph is all I’m writing for The Occupant, because that’s all it deserves. It’s a painfully dull ghost story starring Chow Yun-Fat (shortly before A Better Tomorrow made his ass famous) and Sally Yeh; they must have known they would be making The Killer a few years later and decided to save their energy for that, because they have no chemistry here. Hansom Wong (Raymond Wong) is the third primary character, and he is so annoying that you will want to crawl into the TV and strangle him. To give you an idea of how stupid this film is: near the end, Valentino (Chow Yun-Fat’s character) gets shot. He screams in agony, clutches his heart, and drops to the floor. In the next scene, Valentino is miraculously alive. Why? Because, as we soon find out, the bullets in the gun that shot him were blanks…AND VALENTINO HIMSELF WAS UNAWARE OF THIS. I guess blanks packed a hell of a lot more punch in 1984 than they do now.
Director Ronny Yu tries to combine horror, comedy, and romance, and fails so spectacularly on all three counts that one seriously wonders how he ever secured the funds to make any more movies ever again (including his overpraised “masterpiece” The Bride With White Hair). Hell, a good 50% of the budget for this piece of crap probably went for the scene where Hansom Wong drives a car through a wall and destroys a waterbed. All right, I’m as tired of writing about this movie now as I was of watching it before the half-way point came and went. Avoid this movie. Thank you and good night.
Numskull’s Rating: 2/10
