The Door Lock
门锁
China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 102 mins.
Director: Bie Ke 别克 [Orkenbek Baysenbay].
Rating: 4/10.
Actress Bai Baihe is again the best thing in a poorly scripted film, this time a punched-up re-make of a South Korean psycho-thriller.
STORY
Binhai city, northern China, Oct 2020. After receiving a doorstop as a present from “Jeffrey”, a young woman living alone (Lv Xiaolin) is murdered during the night by someone hiding in her room. Nearby, Fang Hui (Bai Baihe), a woman in her 30s who also lives alone, becomes paranoid about sounds in her flat, and one night thinks she hears someone moving around. A highly organised person, she is puzzled when she finds a sandwich missing from her fridge the next morning, but she brushes it off as her imagination. However, on her front door’s keypad in the corridor outside she finds some fingerprints that are not hers. At the bank call centre where she works, her colleague and only close friend, Qiao Xiaoman (Wang Zixian), is on edge about the young woman’s murder and keeps telling her, as a woman on her own, not to trust men so easily. That evening she finds damp fingermarks on her toilet roll and then someone violently tries to open her front door. The block’s young security guard, Wu Zhijie (Fan Chengcheng), who’s clearly in thrall to her, says the camera in the corridor is broken, so there’s no way of knowing who it was. That night, someone again comes into her flat and drugs her while she’s asleep. The following day she accompanies Qiao Xiaoman to a vet, Zheng Fei (Bai Ke), who’s been looking after her cat; Qiao Xiaoman is clearly stuck on him, and Fang Hui leaves them alone. On the way home, she’s attacked in the street by Gao Qi (Liu Di), the seedy rental agent who’s been harassing her to move out of the flat, even though she’s paid up to the end of the month. She’s rescued by her work supervisor, Li Youlin (Ma Yuke), who happens to be passing and later invites himself into her flat. While she’s trying politely to get him to leave, Wu Zhijie comes by and sees her with a man; both eventually leave her in peace. That night, someone again comes in, drugs her while she’s asleep, and uses her shower and toothbrush. Next day she views some other flats handled by a female estate agent whom Qiao Xiaoman has recommended. While she’s out, Gao Qi breaks in and inspects a camera hidden in the air conditioner – but is then surprised by someone else in the flat. That evening, some thugs whom Gao Qi has sent round to harass Fang Hui are beaten up by Wu Zhijie in the car park; upstairs, Qiao Xiaoman has come round to convince Fang Hui to move in with her immediately and in the meantime the two women investigate an old weirdo in the block opposite who’s always staring at Fang Hui’s flat. Afterwards, Fang Hui packs to leave; but while Qiao Xiaoman briefly leaves her alone, Fang Hui discovers something under her bed. The police seem uninterested in her plight, asking her who else has her door code and why she has so much male clothing in her wardrobe. Qiao Xiaoman has seemingly disappeared, so Fang Hui appeals to Li Youlin to help her.
REVIEW
After an absence of two years from the big screen – following the 2019 flops A City Called Macau 妈阁是座城 and Begin, Again 亲爱的 新年好 – Mainland actress Bai Baihe 白百何 turns up as the lead in woman-in-peril thriller The Door Lock 门锁, a re-make of a South Korean film that was itself inspired by a much earlier Spanish movie. Bai, 37, gives a very watchable performance as far as the script allows, though the film doesn’t correct the wobbly state of her career the past few years. The first feature of Bie Ke 别克 – the Chinese name of Kazakh film-maker Orkenbek Baysenbay, 28, who studied at China’s Central Academy of Drama and Beijing Film Academy – it’s a well-played, atmospheric psycho-thriller in its first half that completely jumps the rails thereafter. Surprisingly, it’s turned out to be a modest hit, taking some RMB220 million in its first two weeks, way more than Macau and Begin, Again, and more than double Bai’s last career swerve into crime drama, The Missing.. 绑架者 (2017). [Final tally was RMB242 million.]
The hidden hand behind Door is creative producer 监制 Wubai 五百 (pen name of Guo Shubo 郭书博), with whom Bie Ke co-directed the 57-part online action-drama Sniper 瞄准 (2020). Wubai has himself directed two entertaining features, divorcee comedy-drama The Old Cinderella 脱轨时 (2014), which was a fine vehicle for actress Zhang Jingchu 张静初, and police drama The Big Shot “大”人物 (2019), a re-make of South Korean mega-hit Veteran 베테랑 (2015). He’s again turned to adapting a Korean hit, but with less success on the artistic side.
Door Lock 도어락 (2018), directed by Yi Gweon 이권 | 李权 and starring actress Gong Hyo-jin 공효진 | 孔晓振 (see poster, left), was an effective, believable thriller inspired by the 2011 Spanish production Sleep Tight Mientras duermes, about a caretaker in a block of flats who falls for one of the tenants and spends nights in her flat after drugging her while she’s asleep (see poster, below left). More a dark, twisted love story that a thriller, and told from the perspective of the villain, it was barely more than referenced in Yi’s “remake”, which shifted the p.o.v. to the woman and completely changed most of the plot beyond the basic idea of home invasion. Bie Ke’s version keeps the Korean’s whodunit structure, adds in extra suspects, punches up the paranoia of the central character, and then goes completely over the top into standard whacko/horror territory with an action finale in the villain’s lair that takes up the last third of the film.
A very subtle actress when given the chance, and at her best in rom-coms, Bai is still well-cast in the first half, as the live-alone white-collar worker in a city where she has only one close friend, and is determined to sustain her independence, keeping a highly organised flat and even hanging some male clothes in her wardrobe to ward off any unwanted suitors. Bai’s combination of wide-eyed wonder and quiet determination works for her character; but not for the first time she’s the best thing in a film that’s let down by its script. That is by Bie Ke and three other writers, of whom only one, lead writer Chen Zhuzhu 陈珠珠, has any kind of track record (as a co-writer on action blockbuster Operation Red Sea 红海行动, 2018, and a script planner on dire sci-fi spectacle Shanghai Fortress 上海堡垒, 2019).
The first half, tightly directed by Bie Ke and shot in widescreen by d.p. Liu Yizeng 刘懿增 (Lost in Russia 囧妈, 2020; Bath Buddy 沐浴之王, 2020), has an intriguing dream-like quality, of heightened reality, in which a fictional northern city is menaced by a creepy woman-killer; every man that Bai’s character meets (security guard, work supervisor, rental agent, friend’s vet) is seemingly threatening in some way; her BFF keeps warning her to be on her guard against trashy males; and there are even vague hints that it all could be the product of her imagination. Bai really fills out a role that looks limited on paper, and brings a cool, methodical common sense to many scenes; but even in the first half there are too many psycho-thriller/woman-in-peril cliches, and when the script ditches any subtlety for a generic action finale, Bai the actress is suddenly left stranded in, for her, unfamiliar territory.
As the various men in her character’s everyday life, the supports aren’t allowed to do much beyond the obvious: Fan Chengcheng 范丞丞 (younger brother of actress Fan Bingbing 范冰冰) in his film debut as a sinister-looking security guard, Ma Yuke 马浴柯 as her “protective” boss, comedian Bai Ke 白客 (Surprise 万万没想到, 2015; Nice to Meet You 遇见你真好, 2018) as a vet her BFF fancies, and goofy Liu Di 刘頔 as a trashy, abusive estate agent. As her paranoid BFF who’s constantly warning her about men but who goes weak-at-the-knees over her cat’s blank-faced vet, Wang Zixuan 王紫璇 (the Snow Queen in The Yinyang Master 侍神令, 2021) is briefly entertaining but not developed in any way. The only character with any depth, and then only in the first half, is Bai’s.
The film was shot in Xiamen city, Fujian province, in autumn 2020. A final intertitle laughably gives a social justification for the film, pointing out how many women now live alone in China, plus a telephone number to call if you feel threatened.
CREDITS
Presented by Xiamen Hengye Pictures (CN), Xiaoxiang Film Group (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), iQiyi Pictures (Beijing) (CN), Huawen (Beijing) Pictures (CN), Shanghai Yima Kedai Culture Media (CN), Ji’nan Cultural Tourism Group Baitong Film & TV Media (CN), Hanma Pictures Media (Guangzhou) (CN).
Script: Chen Zhuzhu, Luo Zhaolin, Orkenbek Baysenbay, Zhao Haozhe. Photography: Liu Yizeng. Editing: Li Nanyi. Music: Zhong Zonghao. Art direction: Song Xiaojie. Sound: Feng Yanming. Visual effects: Yan An.
Cast: Bai Baihe (Fang Hui), Bai Ke (Zheng Fei, vet), Fan Chengcheng (Wu Zhijie/Xiaowu, security guard), Wang Zixuan (Qiao Xiaoman), Ma Yuke (Li Youlin, call-centre supervisor), Liu Huan (Xu Yi, police detective), Liu Di (Gao Qi, rental agent), Lv Xiaolin (murder victim), Guo Jiayi (Xu Yi’s sidekick).
Release: China, 19 Nov 2021.