Can’t See Me Love You
瞳灵公馆
China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 84 mins.
Director: Zhang Mingwei 张明伟.
Rating: 4/10.
Odd-structured horror about a blind woman regaining her sight should be better than it actually is.
STORY
Qingtian county, Zhejiang province, southern China, the present day. After a double-cornea transplant He Yiyi (Hu Rongrong) finally recovers her sight; six months later, however, her eyes are still giving her pain. Her ophthalmologist, Li Chaohang (Wen Xi), says that is normal and maybe due to a part-rejection of the new corneas. He gives her some special dark glasses to help her recover; but she also starts having nightmares and visions, as well as losing her hair. He Yiyi and Li Chaohang fall for each other and start living together. She tells him about her abusive ex-husband, Xu Qiang (Jing Gangshan), who in a fit of jealousy killed her former classmate Li Runming in the street after he visited her one day. She still has visions of Xu Qiang haunting her. After using some incompetent young exorcists (Wang Dalei, Ye Ziqing), Li Chaohang brings in a veteran (Yuan Qiongdan) who confirms there is a powerful spirit around He Yiyi that wants his eyes back from her. Suspicious of the exorcist, He Yiyi’s younger sister, He Shanshan (Xu Dongmei), asks her muck-raking journalist friend Wang Yuan (Wang Haixiang) to investigate.
REVIEW
A complete oddity which should be much better than it actually is, Can’t See Me Love You 瞳灵公馆 could be written off as just one of scores of modest horror films that are churned out every year in the Mainland. In fact, this first theatrical feature by writer-director Zhang Mingwei 张明伟 sports clean photography (by Wang Limin 王力民), okay editing (by Li Jianlong 李建龙 and others), and quite a clever plot by Zhang himself which has enough material for a more superior film. Unfortunately, Zhang is let down both by weak acting and by his own screenplay. Box office was a tiny RMB2.3 million, average for this kind of fare.
Zhang graduated in film-making from the School of Communication of Wuhan-based Central China Normal University, going on in 2010 to study at Beijing Film Academy. He’s been making shorts and online movies for a decade or more, and comes up here with a solidly good-looking product whose weird structure raises it to a entirely different plane. After laying out a standard horror plot – a young, abused blind woman has a cornea transplant, finally gets her sight back, but is then haunted by visions – the whole of the film’s second half is concerned with explaining the plot, which has been uncovered by a muck-raking journalist. Deliberately quirky or not, the film’s structure maintains interest while the plot’s twists and turns are clever enough to do the rest.
It’s just a shame that the performances are so standard, and the dialogue so ordinary. Hong Kong veteran Yuan Qiongdan 苑琼丹 pops up as a crazed “exorcist” who’s brought in to find out why the heroine is “haunted”, but she’s given little to do apart from eye-rolling; as the hero and heroine, both Wen Xi 文熙 and Hu Rongrong 胡蓉蓉 are pretty but bland in their first leading roles. (The two went on to co-star in the 30-minute short Desperate Love 空, 2018, directed by Qiu Xiaojun 邱晓军.) The most forceful presence, though not a dominant one, is Mainland dancer-athlete Xu Dongmei 徐冬梅 (Little Big Soldier 大兵小将, 2010; He-Man 硬汉2 奉陪到底, 2011), who hangs around in a non-action role as the heroine’s tomboyish younger sister, creating all kinds of weird sexual currents that the script never gets into. As the journalist who’s meant to be her pal and anchors the film’s second half, fellow martial artist Wang Haixiang 王海祥 isn’t quite up to the acting demands of his role.
The film was shot in 2016 under the title 看不见的我爱你, of which the English title is a translation. The final Chinese title literally means “Tongling [Eye-Pupil Spirit] Mansion.” On some posters (see left), but not on the film itself, the title starts with the characters 阴阳眼之 (“Yin Yang Eyes:”), which make Can’t See look like part of a franchise.
CREDITS
Presented by Zhejiang Emigration Film Culture Media (CN). Produced by Zhejiang Emigration Film Culture Media (CN).
Script: Zhang Mingwei. Photography: Wang Limin. Editing: Li Jianlong, Ren Yanchao, Xu Yun. Music editing: Li Linyu. Art direction: Yang Quanbao. Styling: Huang Qiuyan. Sound: Cao Wenhui, Zhang Di. Special effects: Huang Junpeng. Executive direction: Guo Yi. Main-title illustrations: Sun Yunhu.
Cast: Wen Xi (Li Chaohang; Li Runming), Hu Rongrong (He Yiyi), Yuan Qiongdan (Zhao, veteran exorcist), Jing Gangshan (Xu Qiang, He Yiyi’s ex-husband), Wang Haixiang (Wang Yuan), Xu Dongmei (He Shanshan), Jing Minqiang (Li Runqing, Li Runming’s father), Wang Dalei (Zhu Liangchen, young exorcist), Ye Ziqing (Ye Tian, young exorcist’s assistant), Liu Yu’an (young He Yiyi), Ji Xinzhe (young Li Runming).
Release: China, 2 Nov 2018.