The Closet

Year:2007

Francis Ng
Director:Cho Kin-Nam
Cast:Francis Ng Chun-Yu, Yang Zhifei, Eddie Cheung Siu-Fai, Michelle Ye, Zhou Ziyue, Chan Mong-Wah, Johnny Wong
Description:
Looking for a horror film? Then don't check out The
Closet. Though loaded with obvious Asian horror
iconography, The Closet is not a horror film.
Instead, it's a psychological thriller about magician/artist
Fred Lo , who botches a televised underwater
performance and has to be rushed to the hospital.
The doctors tell him he needs rests, so he moves to
a house in the countryside with his wife Li . The house is entertainingly furnished; it
belongs to an unnamed artist pal of Fred's, and is
filled with gnarly, borderline creepy sculptures and
more white curtains than is humanly necessary. Despite
the disturbing nature of their new dwelling, the couple
apparently thinks this is the perfect place for Fred
to recuperate.
They're very mistaken.
Right away, odd stuff starts to happen. A little girl
with a distracting red scarf starts appearing
on their lawn in the middle of the night, not to mention
zipping past the house's windows, usually disturbing
Fred and frightening his wife. Some
of the sculptures, including some creepy looking mannequins,
start appearing in odd places, and strange shadows
always seem to be moving behind the omnipresent white
curtains. To make matters worse, their neighbor Ping
suddenly appears in their house, acting
unbalanced and generally out-to-lunch. Soon, her husband
Fung shows up to act surly and warn
his new neighbors that something bad will happen to
them if they don't move out soon. Will Fred and Li
take the advice, or will they fall prey to whatever
spirits are haunting the place?
Big surprise: they won't,
because there aren't any spirits in this film at all.
A better title for The Closet would probably
be My Neighbors are Insane, because that's
really what goes on in the film. The above sentence
would probably qualify as a spoiler if the filmmakers
were attempting some sort of cleverness through their
rampant use of horror film technique. However, I seriously
doubt that they were. The Closet has plenty
of visual evidence that makes the film seem like a
standard Asian horror film. There's a red-garbed,
long-haired little girl who shows up from time to
time with creepy backlighting and ominous music cues
aiding her appearances. Characters skulk around like
they're possessed, and appear and disappear in obvious
horror movie-like fashion. If someone in the audience
was convinced that The Closet is a ghost film,
then they should be congratulated for their incredible
grasp of the obvious.
However, all the horror
film imagery is pointless and inexplicable. Director
Cho Kin-Nam seems to be employing all his horror film
clichés simply to get a rise out of his audience,
and never overtly indicates that something supernatural
is afoot. Even more, the film possesses absolutely
zero mystery. Basically, Fred Lo's neighbors are completely
disturbed, and the more that's discovered about their
psychoses the less it all seems to matter. There's
some psychological subtext involving Fred Lo's father
complex, and Fung has some work trouble that makes
him very stressed out, but the purpose of all these
details is unfathomable. Is The Closet some
sort of statement on stressed out Hong Kong people,
and how they bring their pressure home and torture
their neighbors with it? If so, then Cho Kin-Nam never
got that message across either. Just what was the
purpose of making this film?
Presumably the idea
was entertainment, but The Closet fails handily
in that regard, delivering a psychological thriller
where nothing really seems to happen besides a few
characters acting bipolar. This occurs despite some
decent acting from Michelle Ye and Francis Ng, though
Ng's performance feels out of place. The Closet
ranks among Ng's warmer performances, as he gives
Fred Lo a playful humanity that proves endearing.
However, he also seems a bit too cuddly, such that
the character's potential imbalances never seem dangerous.
Had the character of Fred Lo seemed dangerous, it
could have added some potential suspense to the narrative.
However, that quibble is just one item on a laundry
list of possible fixes, and rattling off every little
suggestion would probably be incredibly time-consuming,
plus it avoids the root of the problem, that the film
is simply ill-conceived. To attack that problem head
on, here's one thing the filmmakers can do: make better
movies.