Harpoon 驚魂遊戲

Story

Beijing, the present day. Stressed out over whether to dump her three-year boyfriend Zheng Ming (Hu Bing) in favour of Peter, a western businessman, video-game designer Meiqi (Monica Mok) finds her private life is affecting her work. She also suspects that Zheng Ming is now stalking her, and is the masked attacker who almost killed her one night in an underground carpark. So she can finally sort out her feelings, her boss Laura (Li Lingyu) arranges a holiday for her in a tropical archipelago, along with Zheng Ming, her work colleague YoYo (Zhao Ming) and YoYo's boyfriend, Sen (Li Haoxuan). On arrival, their guide-cum-boatman Ma (Huang Daozhen) recommends staying on a smaller, prettier island nearby and takes them there. The hotel is only partly finished, as the original investor went bankrupt 10 years ago, and the place is run by just old Lin (Wang Shuangbao) and his retarded son Bing (Park No-shik). Because of its idyllic location, the four agree to stay a couple of nights. The next day, while Zheng Ming and Meiqi go fishing, YoYo and Sen explore the island and discover an old fish smokehouse, where they're drugged and murdered by Lin and Bing. Later, Zheng Ming and Meiqi also discover the same place, and find themselves in a hunt to the death.

Review

A straight-up, low-budget slasher movie set on a remote island, Harpoon 驚魂遊戲 (2011) hardly made any impression at the local box-office and enjoyed none of the surprise success of its nearest genre relative, last summer's Mysterious Island 孤島驚魂 (2011). (Being released in the middle of the busy New Year period probably didn't help.) A conscious attempt to hitch a ride on China's horror wave, and also to introduce suspense elements from low-budget western slashers, Harpoon lacks the sheer thrills and spills (and mild titillation) of Island but is actually much better directed.

Writer-director ZHOU Yaowu 周耀武, 35, is slightly known on the festival circuit for his first feature, the arty tragi-comedy Cucumber 黃瓜 (2008); but he's been in genre territory before with his 53-minute short Ghost Room 鬼寢 (2005), and Harpoon is just one of several (unproduced) genre scripts he wrote in a deliberate change of career direction after Cucumber. Despite its small cast and limited budget, there's care shown in the casting, with Monica MOK 莫小棋 (Ocean Flame 一半海水一半火焰 (2008), Mural 畫壁 (2011)) top-billed as a troubled video-game designer sent on a holiday with three friends; TV actor-male supermodel HU Bing 胡兵 in a relatively rare film role as Mok's co-lead; big-breasted newcomer ZHAO Ming 趙銘 (the brief sensation of Let the Bullets Fly 讓子彈飛 (2010)) as a trashy colleague; and South Korean character actor PARK No-shik 박노식 | 朴魯植 (Memories of Murder 살인의 추억 (2003), War of the Arrows 최종병기 활 (2011)) as a monkey-like retard.

After a fairly routine set-up, the film shifts into higher gear at the 40-minute mark, and is thereafter basically a life-or-death chase around the island, mostly at night. Zhou's above-average care with visuals and framing comes into its own here, along with consistently fine camerawork by Hong Kong's Patrick LEE 李天衛 (Twilight Dancing 車逝 (2008)) and excellent editing — best seen in a sequence of Mok and Hu trapped in their room at night. Though there are signs of some cutting for violence, the film does trade more on atmosphere than blood-letting; its weakness, however, is that it's never especially chilling or gripping and the final twist is ho-hum.

Mok again shows her considerable screen presence but once the action gets going has little to do except scream. Other performances are just okay, with the best in fact coming from WANG Shuangbao 王雙宝 (Blind Shaft 盲井 (2003)) as the hotel's caretaker/cook. Harpoon is most effective as a calling-card, and it will be interesting to see whether Zhou fulfils the promise it shows.

The Chinese title means Scare Game and is the same one used for local release of US horror movie Are You Scared (2008). Harpoon refers to the title of the latest video game by Mok's character, though the film should be more accurately called Trident, given the principal weapon used throughout.