Home Sweet Home
秘密访客
China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 109 mins.
Director: Chen Zhengdao 陈正道 [Leste Chen].
Rating: 4/10.
Moody drama centred on a wealthy family and an adopted “guest” becomes even more ridiculous in its second half.
STORY
A coastal hill town somewhere in China, the present day. Yu Kunqiao (Duan Yihong), the driver of Shihe International School’s bus, wakes up after the vehicle crashes down a hillside. He rescues a boy from the wreckage and takes him to a hospital, but then passes out on the street outside. He wakes up on the floor of a basement, overseen by Wang (Guo Fucheng), owner of the house. Three years later, Yu Kunqiao has become a part of the Wang household – a well-off, middle-class family including Wang’s wife (Xu Weining), teenage daughter Wang Chutong (Zhang Zifeng) and young son Wang Chuqi (Rong Zishan). Because he rescued Wang Chuqi and took him to the hospital, Wang has allowed Yu Kunqiao to hide out in the basement of his home, on condition that sometime he will turn himself in to the authorities of his own free will, even though he claims the bus crash was not his fault. Wang strictly controls his family: the children are top pupils at school but have few freedoms at home, and the house has no TV, magazines or newspapers. Wang Chutong likes to draw but is not encouraged by her father; instead, Yu Kunqiao encourages her, and the two have a special bond that is eyed jealously by Wang Chuqi. The atmosphere in the house is tense: at dinner Yu Kunqiao tells Wang he still intends to turn himself in, and then Wang’s wife, who has a sudden bilious attack, says she wants a divorce. (Wang had found Yu Kunqiao outside the hospital and brought him home. He asked Yu Kunqiao why he’d stopped the bus by the roadside and then, after getting out with his son, had argued with him on the pavement. Yu Kunqiao had said he couldn’t remember anything. Later, the parents [Li Jie, Kong Yan] of one of the dead children, Si’an, had come by the house to see if there was any news about the driver being found, as they wanted him jailed for bad driving and malicious intent, following an angry but inconclusive meeting between the school and pupils’ parents. After the two had left, Yu Kunqiao had told Wang he remembered that Wang Chuqi had offered him RMB100 to pull over and tie up his shoelaces. Under protest, Yu Kunqiao had stopped the bus, and while he and Wang Chuqi were arguing on the pavement, a lorry had crashed into the school bus, sending it plummeting down the hillside into a small cove. Yu Kunqiao had then begged Wang to let him hide out longer in his house’s basement, as all of the dead children’s parents were so angry.) Wang Chuqi’s jealousy at the friendship between Yu Kunqiao and his sister boils over and he calls Yu Kunqiao a “murderer”. Wang Chutong angrily defends Yu Kunqiao and says Wang Chuqi must be happy that all the children who bullied him at school are now dead. Walking home from school, Wang Chutong is approached by a man (Lv Yulai) whom she recognises as her mother’s lover; he invites her to run away with them. At home Wang Chutong tells her mother to leave if she wants but to never come back. Mrs. Wang decides to stay and Wang announces he’ll take her next day to hospital as she’s “not feeling well”. Both children realise he knows she is pregnant. When alone together, Wang Chutong suggests to Yu Kunqiao that they run away together, but he demurs, praising her parents. Later, Wang Chuqi warns his sister not to betray him and their father. (Wang Chuqi was “dared” by other kids on the bus to get Yu Kunqiao to pull over and tie up his shoelaces. He had even made the bus swerve as he tried to force Yu Kunqiao to stop the vehicle. On the pavement outside, Yu Kunqiao had called him a spoiled rich kid but Wang Chuqi had claimed the other children forced him to do it. After the lorry had pushed the bus over the cliff edge, Yu Kunqiao had scrambled down the hillside but knocked himself unconscious.) That night Wang Chutong sleepwalks down to the basement and asks Yu Kunqiao to tie up her shoelaces; Wang Chuqi sees her and leads her back to her room. But next day, after a mysterious event, Wang Chutong ends up with marks on her legs; and that night Mrs. Wang, wearing a bloodstained nightdress, comes to Yu Kunqiao and says Wang Chutong is haunted by Lulu (Wang Shengdi), her class monitor who had defended Yu Kunqiao at the parents’ school meeting.
REVIEW
A cross between a family drama, crime mystery and ghost movie – with a plot that’s so ridiculous it finally takes a police officer 15 minutes to explain, with more flashbacks – Home Sweet Home 秘密访客 isn’t quite as chaotic as Battle of Memories 记忆大师 (2017), the last film by director Chen Zhengdao 陈正道 [Leste Chen], but has many of the same problems – chief among them a lame screenplay. Some moody playing, led by Mainland actor Duan Yihong 段奕宏 (The Dead End 烈日灼心, 2015; The Looming Storm 暴雪将至, 2017) and young actress Zhang Zifeng 张子枫 (Last Letter 你好，之华, 2018; Sister 我的姐姐, 2021), helps to maintain interest in the short term; but as the plotting gets progressively sillier from the hour mark on, it’s difficult to stay engaged with just their performances and the art direction. Among the May Day holiday lineup it was a middling attraction, with a polite RMB215 million, just below Memories‘ RMB293 million four years ago.
It’s a shame that Chen, 40, the only Taiwan director of his generation to be pursuing a Mainland-based career, continues to have such a rocky ride. Since his career high with Miss Granny 重返20岁 (2015), he’s done the futuristic mystery-thriller Memories, some producing jobs (Wild Grass 荞麦疯长, 2020) and two online TV dramas (Moonshine and Valentine 结爱 千岁大人的初恋, 2018; A Murderous Affair in Horizon Tower 摩天大楼, 2020). Though he’s used many of his regular crew on Home, the scriptwriter is new to feature films: Shanghai-born food writer Shu Qiao 殳俏, 40, elder sister of swimmer-turned-actor Jin Shijia 金世佳 (the flashy villain in Break through the Darkness 扫黑 决战 , 2021) and one of the writers on Horizon Tower. Shu is best known as the instigator of the Yueshi China 悦食中国 project, focusing on traditional, handcrafted cuisine; on the evidence of Home, she still has something to learn about feature-film writing.
Chen’s regular team of Hong Kong d.p. Lin Zhijian 林志坚 [Charlie Lam], composer Liang Qiaobai 梁翘柏 [Kubert Leung] and art directors Luo Shunfu 罗顺福 and Shen Zhanzhi 沈展志 all maintain an atmosphere of mystery and threat as the plot unfolds: the longtime driver of a private school’s bus hides out at the home of one of the surviving children after a fatal crash, and is adopted into the family by the control-freak paterfamilias on the understanding he’ll give himself up one day, despite pleading he’s innocent of the accident. Three years later he’s still living in the basement, and the wealthy home is torn by tensions between the husband, wife, teenage daughter and young son. Lin’s shadowy widescreen photography, Liang’s churning melodramatic score, and the setting of the cold, ultra-designed house all pile on the mood, as the family exchanges glances, has emotional outbursts and slams things down on the table. The daughter has taken a liking to the driver as he encourages her in her drawing, while the son glowers a lot and the wife doesn’t say much at all.
What should have been a tense psycho-thriller centred on an “ideal” upper middle-class home starts with the unlikeliest of premises and then becomes increasingly pulled in various directions as the screenplay flounders around for shocks and effects. The reliable Duan (who played the detective in Memories) is fine as the crumpled bus driver who just wants to keep everyone calm, and Zhang, as the teen on the cusp of womanhood, is equally fine – two famously inexpressive actors out-competing each other on screen. However, as the obsessive father who tries to pull everyone’s strings, Hong Kong’s Guo Fucheng 郭富城 [Aaron Kwok] mistakes whispering for dramatic acting, while half-Italian American, Taiwan-based actress Xu Weining 许伟甯 (Who Killed Cock Robin 目击者, 2017) doesn’t get much chance to show her stuff beyond looking tense or being hysterical.
Although the story is set somewhere in the Mainland – a RMB100 note forms a crucial plot point – the whole film has a deliberately placeless feel, and actually looks more South Korean or Taiwan than Mainland China, especially in its exteriors. But it’s the script that’s the main culprit here: after a wave of revelations and flashbacks, a detective is parachuted into the cast at the 85-minute mark to explain the plot, and the whole film finally ends with platitudes about how family life should be. The Chinese title avoids any mention of family and simply means “The Secret Guest”, though anyone expecting a riff on Teorema (1968) is advised to look elsewhere.
CREDITS
Presented by New Classics Pictures (CN), Alibaba Pictures (CN). Produced by Beijing Golden Cicada Film (CN).
Script: Shu Qiao. Photography: Lin Zhijian [Charlie Lam]. Editing: Yang Hongyu, Qi Xiaodong. Music supervision: Liang Qiaobai [Kubert Leung]. Art direction: Luo Shunfu, Shen Zhanzhi. Styling: Ye Zhuzhen. Sound: Shi Xiang, Zhao Nan, Yang Jiang. Action: Luo Yimin [Norman Law]. Visual effects: Shi Wen, Liu Ying (MoreVFX). Executive direction: Zhang Zhengquan.
Cast: Guo Fucheng [Aaron Kwok] (Wang), Duan Yihong (Yu Kunqiao), Zhang Zifeng (Wang Chutong), Xu Weining (Mrs. Wang; Pan Chenlu’s mother), Rong Zishan (Wang Chuqi; Chen Xiaoqi), Lv Yulai (Mrs. Wang’s lover), Li Jie (Si’an’s father), Li Xiaochuan (Chen Xiaoqi’s birth father), Tao Hai (police officer), Zhang Baijia (Zhang Xiaoxue), Kong Yan (Si’an’s mother), Gong Xiaorong (Wang Chuqi’s teacher), Qin Chuan (school head), Ren Luomin (Wang’s lawyer), Ma Xiaoman (secretary), Chang Fangyuan (reporter), Wang Shengdi (Pan Chenlu/Lulu), Wei Zhihao (young Wang Chuqi).
Release: China, 1 May 2021.