#cheng hei lam michelle

[swanlake1998]

leung saulong, ma renjie, wang yueh erica, kim eunsil, lai pui ki peggy, forrest rain oliveros, cheng hei lam michelle, wang zi, leung sze chai cindy, xu shentian, ethan chudnow, yuen ao xin hennes, luis carbrera, zhu jiaying, kan ka kit jordan, jackson dwyer, zhang xuening, ashleigh bennett, reina sawai, jonathan spigner, lin chang-yuan kyle, leung chunlong, henry seldon, garry corpuz, chen zhiyao, ye feifei, venus villa, and wei wei photographed for hong kong ballet season 2020/21 by issac lam

[johnnymundano]

Dream Home (2010)

Directed by Pang Ho-cheung

Written by Jimmy Wan, Derek Tsang, Pang Ho-cheung

Story by Pang Ho-cheung

Music by Gabriele Roberto

Country: Hong Kong

Language: Cantonese

Running Time: 96 minutes

CAST

Josie Ho as Cheng Lai-sheung

Wong Ching as Security Guard

Eason Chan as Siu Tu

Michelle Ye as Flat 8A Female Owner

Jo Kuk as Flat 8A Female Owner's Friend

Cheng Hao Sum as Jimmy

Paw Hee-ching as Sheung's Mother

Lo Hoi-pang as Sheung's Grandpa

Norman Chu as Sheung's Father

Lap-Man Tan as Flat 8A Male Owner

Lam Yiu-Sing as Sheung's Brother

Derek Tsang as Cheung Jai

Lawrence Chou as On Jai

Song Xiao Cheng as Woman A

Zhou Chuchu as Woman B

Phat Chan as Blondie

Felix Lok as Cop Man

Juno Mak as Cop Fat

Hey, Kids! It’s a subtitled Socialist slasher movie! No, wait, don’t go; take your coat off and sit back down, you’ll like it; an eye pops out and everything! Here’s a horror movie for anyone who still gets night sweats about that time they had to buy a house. Because for most of us normal folk a house is the most significant purchase we’ll ever make. I know you who are yet to flail your way up the property ladder probably think the height of expenditure would be that rare NECA Planet of The Apes Series 3 box set (with Conquest Caesar, Conquest Gorilla and Battle’s General Aldo), but you are sadly mistaken. For the bulk of humanity, you see, buying a house is in effect agreeing to a period of indentured servitude; that house is what you are working for; the poorly judged odd black-out drunk or rare NECA Planet of The Apes Series 3 box set (with Conquest Caesar, Conquest Gorilla and Battle’s General Aldo) aside, obviously. Your life is reduced to a lopsided gamble that  you’ll live long enough to enjoy the bloody thing. Until then it’s like living in a suffocating cave of debt in the shape of a house. So you’ll understand the drive fuelling Cheng Lai-sheung (Josie Ho); she just wants a nice home. Trouble is she might just have to kill to get it. And kill a lot at that.

Astonishingly, Cheng has things even worse than this white, middle-aged heterosexual male. Which is a surprise because I thought white, middle aged heterosexual males had it hardest of all. (I’m joking there.) Not so! At least not in Hong Kong where the movie is set. This movie gets pretty disgusting (and we’ll get to that) and that’s part of the appeal, sure, but another part of the appeal is the setting. Now, I know nothing about Hong Kong beyond the fact we “gave it back” and Hong Kong Phooey is not in fact set in Hong Kong. So this movie was a bit of an eye opener. Lot of tower blocks in Hong Kong. Lots. But not enough. Plenty of people though. Too many, maybe. But that’s okay because as any Tory can tell you, the market naturally finds the correct level of pricing and everything is okay. So Cheng finds a reasonably priced house and moves in; except for a scene rich in peril involving the recalcitrant cap on a jam jar she lives a happy life and dies peacefully and fulfilled. 

No! Because that’s Free Market fairy-tale horseshit. What are you, a child? No, you aren’t; because this film is Rated 18, so you better not be. In fact what happens, as ever, is the poor are driven out of their homes at the whim of property developers, who build luxury flats ordinary people can’t afford so as to maximise their profits, and the constant struggle to afford a decent home curdles natural aspiration into homicidal insanity. Fuck your free market fantasy, in short.

Unlike this outside toilet of a review Dream Home gets stuck straight in with an extended scene of inventively unpleasant violence which explores the potential lethality of everyday objects (those cable tie things for starters). Dream Home does this a lot, juxtaposing the most banal of objects with the most lethal of uses. And it does it well. At several points I was physically squirming and hoping what was clearly about to happen wasn’t going to happen. It’s not all like that  though. Sometimes the things that happen are things you wouldn’t ever have expected to happen; things that had you known they were about to happen might actually have dissuaded you from watching it. Some of it is pretty sick stuff, is what I’m getting at. It peaks early sickness wise, so if you can get past the pregnant lady murder you’ll be okay. There was a kind of palpable wave of discomfort/disapproval from the feminine end of the couch at that point; fair warning. It’s worth weathering the discomfort because as sick as it is Dream Home is never as sick as the society it satirises.

Dream Home is unrelentingly entertaining, offsetting stomach churning violence with flashback scenes which at least explain (but never justify) Cheng’s actions. One small caveat for the subtitle averse: It’s in Cantonese and I have to reluctantly say the subtitles are less than ideal. I can only assume they err on the literal side of things, as it took a beat to mentally recast them in colloquial English sometimes. It’s a bit bumpy, but you get what’s going on. Sad children and eyeball popping transcend all language barriers. A tiny carp that, though, one which doesn’t even dent the pleasure of chancing upon a slasher film that’s smart enough to know that the real killer is inequality. And if anyone would like to gift me that rare NECA Planet of The Apes Series 3 box set (with Conquest Caesar, Conquest Gorilla and Battle’s General Aldo) then I’m sure you’ll get your reward in Heaven. Because right now I too have a house to pay for.