The Chrysalis

女蛹之人皮嫁衣

China, 2013, colour, 16:9, 98 mins.

Director: Qiu Chuji 邱处机.

Rating: 6/10.

Intriguing but unfocused Mainland psycho-horror ranges from great to corny.

STORY

Shanghai, Valentine’s Day, 14 Feb 2011. Hairdresser Guan Wenxin (Zhang Rongrong), 27, the illegitimate daughter of a French man and a Chinese woman, is kidnapped by her onetime best friend, rich girl Dai Anni (Yan Qianqian), immobilised with muscle relaxants, and held prisoner in a flat. Both had fallen for the same man, teacher Luo Jia (Ren Quan), while at university, and Dai Anni had lived with him for two years in the US; but after Luo Jia chose to propose to Guan Wenxin, Dai Anni has returned from the US to get her revenge. Dai Anni tries to electrocute Guan Wenxin in a bathtub but the latter escapes; during their subsequent fight, Guan Wenxin is knocked unconscious. She wakes up, exactly three months later, on a road in the rain. After finding Luo Jia, she discovers that the flat in which she was held prisoner – immediately opposite Luo Jia’s – is now empty and Dai Anni has disappeared. Dai Anni’s father (Cui Jie), the psychiatrist head of Pu’en Hospital, confirms he last got a message from his daughter on 14 Feb; after putting Guan Wenxin through some tests, he confirms she has amnesia. Staying with Luo Jia, Guan Wenxin keeps getting horrific visions. One day in the metro she meets Wu Guangming (Li Wei), an artist who says he found her three months ago and let her live at his flat. Luo Jia then tells Guan Wenxin that the body of Dai Anni has been found in the sea near a greenhouse she owned outside the city; the body is badly decayed after being in the water for three months. The next day, at Dai Anni’s funeral, Guan Wenxin suddenly seems to become possessed by her personality, saying she was pregnant by Luo Jia and Guan Wenxin was responsible for the loss of her baby. Guan Wenxin now starts to believe that Dai Anni’s ghost has taken possession of her body.

REVIEW

A Mainland psycho-horror about a young woman who seems possessed by the ghost of her fiance’s ex-lover, The Chrysalis 女蛹之人皮嫁衣 is an intriguing mixture of ideas and imagery that could have been much better if the direction had not been so over-heated. The film still has enough interesting elements – not least, Taiwan-French indie queen Zhang Rongrong 张榕容 [Sandrine Pinna] in her first genre outing – to be savoured as a wild ride by genre fans, plus a plot that develops into an incredibly complex tangle after the simplest of beginnings.

This first feature by Chengdu-born, Shanghai-based Qiu Chuji 邱处机 (real name: Qiu Donghua 邱东华) is of interest simply for being produced by four Shanghai companies – including his own Yellapapa Pictures – given the overwhelming domination of Beijing-based companies in Mainland production. One of China’s top ad directors, Qiu, whose professional name is modelled after the real-life Daoist master recently portrayed in An End to Killing 止杀 (2012), blends talent from the Mainland and Taiwan (via Chinese American d.p. Zhu Zhigang 朱志剛 [Jeffrey Chu], from Stand by Me 奋斗, 2011, and Lovers in the Water 摆手舞之恋, 2011) into a movie that continually veers from the inspired to the trashy while hardly pausing for breath inbetween. Marketed on release as the unlikely combination of a Valentine’s Day film and a horror movie, it’s much more the latter, with the accent firmly on psycho.

The film starts gangbusters, with the heroine tortured by her crazed, ex-best friend in a bathtub and wondering (in voice-over) how she came to be there. The plot then rapidly shifts gears into an amnesia movie as she wakes up three months later in the pouring rain and tries to reassemble the truth with the help of her fiance. Not the first time in a Chinese film, the main twist is partly given away by the original title’s “handle”, though it also involves an elaborate trick played on the audience. It’s a challenging role for Zhang (hereto best known for artier Taiwan stuff like Candy Rain 花吃了那女孩, 2008, Yang Yang 阳阳, 2009, and Touch of the Light 逆光飞翔, 2012) that plays on her own mixed-blood background but also pushes her into pure genre territory. Zhang, 25, throws herself into the part with abandon but, as usual for the unschooled actress, ends up with a performance that ranges the whole spectrum from effective to corny.

In that respect, Zhang reflects the movie as a whole, which is prodigal with its rich bag of ideas. At its best – as in the dark, horrific opening, or a poetic mid-section in a village – The Chrysalis is impressive; elsewhere, the restless, hand-held photography and fantastical plot work against any atmosphere-building in favour of over-cooked psycho-horror. Aside from Zhang, Mainland actor Ren Quan 任泉 (Assembly 集结号, 2007; Confucius 孔子, 2009; The Double Life A面B面, 2010) largely marks time as the fiance; more charismatic is Taiwan actor-singer Li Wei 李威 (Blue Cha Cha 深海, 2005) as a mysterious, handsome artist. Chinese American Yan Qianqian 严千千 and Shanghai TV actress Gao Beibei 高蓓蓓 are briefly notable as the psycho-bitch and her elder sister.

A novelisation, authored by Qiu and writer Li Men 李闷, was published prior to the film’s release, in Dec 2012.

CREDITS

Presented by Yellapapa Pictures (CN), Northgod Film & Television (CN), Rosefinch Design (CN), Ziyi Advertisement (CN). Produced by Yellapapa Pictures (CN).

Script: Qiu Chuji, Xuanwude Yu [Xuanwu’s Fish: Li Yuwen, Tan Jinhua, An Ningxiang, Ma Yumeng]. Photography: Zhu Zhigang [Jeffrey Chu]. Editing: Qiu Chuji, Han Feng. Music: Li Xinyun. Art direction: Guo Jiang. Costume design: Mao Te. Styling: Mao Te. Sound: Lou Yihan, Du Duzhi. Action: Li Lei. Visual effects: Li Junhua (Legendtoonland).

Cast: Zhang Rongrong [Sandrine Pinna] (Guan Wenxin), Ren Quan (Luo Jia), Li Wei (Wu Guangming), Cui Jie (Dai, hospital head, Dai Anni’s father), Gao Beibei (Wendy, Dai Anni’s elder sister), Yan Qianqian (Dai Anni/Anne), Zhan Chuheng (Chunshan), Sun Jun (Hui), Liu Shengyue (Sheng), Xiao Xi (Sheng’s mother), Zhuang Wenyan (fourth aunt), Li Wenlong (Mao), Wu Jing (real-estate agent), Qiu Yitong (little girl), Wang Shuai (photographer), Liang Jun (wedding MC), Huang Yinyan (old man), Han Li (old woman), Yu Kuai (middle-aged man), Yu Jingying (young Dai Anni), Guo Yamei (grandmother), Lin Tao (fat man), Zhang Yue (foreign-enterprise woman), Xia Jiashun (cool man), Yan Liping (middle-aged woman), Tao Jieting (young wife), Cai Beiyi (hairdressing salon manager), Zhu Jian (middle-aged boss), Xu Yaxiong (Wang).

Release: China, 1 Feb 2013.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 30 Mar 2013.)