A Woman in the Shadow
夜魔人
China, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 89 mins.
Director: Zhang Kunyi 张坤一.
Rating: 5/10.
Offbeat, well-tooled horror story is flawed by an over-dense script and a lack of cumulative drama.
STORY
A city in southern China, the present day, December. Psychology student Zhao Ziyu (Wei Ni), an orphan, suffers from nightmares – including one of a young girl pushing another down a well while they’re playing – and is taking some medicine given by her university lecturer, the middle-aged Bai Shuhe (Du Yuming). Zhao Ziyu and her BFF, fellow student He Xuan (Xu Siyu), work part-time in a coffee house, where one day Zhao Ziyu’s ex-boyfriend, Du Zhen (Li Longjun), comes to borrow money. Against her better judgement, and He Xuan’s advice, she finally hands over a couple of hundred yuan, just to get rid of him. There has been a series of murders in the neighbourhood, thought by police to be the work of a serial killer. The next victims are student Ren Na (Zhang Yaoyin) and her boyfriend (Geng Qiang), who are stabbed in the neck by a hooded woman and then dragged away by a man. When Ren Na is reported missing, police detectives (Yang Kaiming, Guan Zijing) question Zhao Ziyu, as Ren Na also worked at the same coffee house. In fact, Ren Na is being held, gagged and bound to a chair, by Bai Shehe, who has also suspended her boyfriend from the ceiling for his deadly amusement. That night, Du Zhen enters Zhao Ziyu’s flat with a duplicate key and demands more money for his gambling habit. Zhao Ziyu’s flatmate Qi Xue’er (Yang Kaidi), a close friend from their orphanage days, orders him to leave, which he does after finding some cash. The next day, Jiang Yexin (Na Renhua) – a onetime psychological therapist who’s looking after her wheelchair-bound nephew Lin Mu following a car crash that killed his parents – visits the coffee house and deliberately leaves behind her mobile phone. Having seen Lin Mu spying on Zhao Ziyu one evening, she plans to persuade Zhao Ziyu to try to cure Lin Mu’s depression. Meanwhile, there is another murder, of a policeman, and then the bodies of Ren Na and her boyfriend are found, both drained of blood. The police unearth a similar unsolved case from 1984, and Jiang Yexin’s own memories of her student days back then are also stirred.
REVIEW
A coolly directed Mainland horror that hints at far more weirdness than ever appears on screen, A Woman in the Shadow 夜魔人 is an offbeat first feature by Shanxi-born writer-director Zhang Kunyi 张坤一 that’s flawed by an over-crowded script and a general lack of cumulative drama. Despite that, there’s an impressive assurance about the movie that holds the attention and overrides many of its weaknesses – at least during actual viewing – and is a big step up by Zhang, then 25, from her 60-minute online film FTone 天女猎妖团 (2015), a so-so action-horror centred on a boppy girl-group who are actually demon-hunters. Alas, Woman hardly registered at the box office with a microscopic RMB240,000 and Zhang has not been heard of since.
A graduate of the Paris-based Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français, Zhang previously co-directed, with Wan Jia 万佳, the six-minute online horror 哭泣的玉镯子 (literally, “The Weeping Jade Bracelet”, 2013). She produced Woman through her own Beijing-based company Runner Film, shooting it in Chongqing, central China. Shot in slightly wintry but full-bodied colours by d.p. Li Jibin 李吉斌, it’s nicely mounted on a technical level and goes for the long, psychological burn rather than immediate shock value, with the score by South Korea’s Jo Geung-min 조긍민 | 赵恒敏 largely atmospheric. Plotting, however, is simply too dense and schematic for all the elements and characters and subplots – serial killers, nightmares, love stories, psycho-dramas, as well as flashbacks to an earlier story in 1984 – to cohere in an effective way, and the dramatic pulse is too even throughout.
As the conflicted, nightmare-haunted heroine, Urumuqi-born Uyghur looker Wei Ni 维妮 (aka Wei Na 韦娜), who gave a spirited performance in caper comedy Coming Back 回马枪 (2011), holds the screen effectively, despite walking around in a sweater with “Beaut” emblazoned on the front, while veteran Na Renhua 娜仁花, as a psychotherapist with a past, adds some maturer heft. Male roles are cardboardy. The film’s Chinese title literally means “Night Demon(s)”.
CREDITS
Presented by Runner Film (CN). Produced by Runner Film (CN).
Script: Zhang Kunyi. Photography: Li Jibin. Editing: Cui Jian. Music: Jo Geung-min, Jiang Linfeng. Art direction: Ying Haitao. Styling: Wang Xiuting. Sound: Wang Yuelei, Ma Yue. Visual effects: Song Wei (Creative Pictures Studio). Executive direction: Li Xiaojuan.
Cast: Wei Ni (Zhao Ziyu), Lu Lingjie (Lin Mu), Na Renhua (Jiang Yexin), Du Yuming (Bai Shuhe), Li Longjun (Du Zhen), Xu Siyu (He Xuan), Yang Kaidi (Qi Xue’er), Yang Kaiming (Gong, senior police detective), Guan Zijing (Xun, police detective), Zheng Qiuyu (young Jiang Yexin), Zhou Yang (young Bai Shuhe), Feng Shi (Liu Yanming), Chen Sinuo (young Qi Xue’er), Yang Yang (teacher), Zhang Yaoyin (Ren Na), Geng Qiang (Ren Na’s boyfriend).
Release: China, 9 Sep 2016.