It wasn’t so many years ago when Chinese filmmakers were respected by overseas audiences for their bravery in telling original stories that are set against the backdrop of their country’s recent history. That’s all changed now with China’s censorship laws that have stifled creativity and have pushed local filmmakers to shy away from projects that may hurt the feelings of the Chinese people. In its place, a lot of hyper-patriotic pap is getting made, including stories that take place in some corrupt fictional southeast Asian country because corruption in China doesn’t exist anymore. That’s what we have here with THE INVISIBLE GUEST.

A remake of the 2016 Spanish film, CONTRATIEMPO, but with the genders of the main characters reversed, THE INVISIBLE GUEST tells the story of Joanna Shaphat (Janine Chang/張鈞甯), a beautiful and wealthy, married woman who is about to be charged with the murder of her lover, Ming Hao (Yin Zheng/尹正). All the evidence seems to point to her guilt. They were alone in a locked hotel room, she’s covered in his blood and her fingerprints are all over the murder weapon. Before the police haul her pretty little tush in though, she’s visited in her fancy home by Zheng Wei (Greg Hsu/許光漢), a cocky police officer who gives her exactly two hours to tell him what happened that led to her lover’s murder. Zheng Wei, though, appears to have an ulterior motive. He has some incriminating evidence in his possession that he’s prepared to “lose” but for a hefty price.

I’m all for movies that twist and turn and twist some more (think THE USUAL SUSPECTS) but THE INVISIBLE GUEST is ridiculous. After a few twists, the story just doesn’t make sense anymore. It took about 45 minutes before I gave up all hope of finding any logic to this story and simply went along for the ride. Director Chen Zhou/陳卓 employs plenty of thudding sound effects where none are necessary to evoke tension but that’s not even his worst crime. Once the final twist is revealed, he commits the cardinal sin of showing audiences in extended and overly melodramatic detail what really happened before and in that hotel room. Without revealing too much, the case also involves the disappearance of a local ethnic Chinese man from this fictional southeast Asian country where the police all speak English with various accents, and the efforts of the man’s wife (played by Kara Wai/惠英紅, SAKRA; MRS K) and son to find him. So many tears and so much emotion! Right when the murderer was finally caught out, that’s when the final credits should have started rolling. The audience doesn’t need another 15 minutes of both prologue and epilogue showing that the man gave up a kidney to his son. It’s irrelevant and hokey.

THE INVISIBLE GUEST opens in Hong Kong on Thursday (January 11^th). There are worse films than this one playing in the cinemas right now but that’s not saying much. If you do go see it, just be prepared to check your logic at the door.

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