Film Name: 瞒天过海 / The Invisible Guest
Last night I went to see the recent film ‘The Invisible Guest’ which has been making quite a bit of noise – if you don’t usually watch much suspense, or if you haven’t seen the original Spanish film ‘Contratiempo’ before, then it’s a good one to check out, otherwise this film is really lacklustre! ……
Let’s put it this way, as a remake, almost everything that’s great about The Invisible Guest has been lifted from the original, and its own new additions are either simple conversions that are optional or detractors that ruin the viewing experience.
For example, the sex change of the real killer (from male to female), the change of the victim (from son to father), the change of the identity of the impostor (from lawyer to policeman), and so on, are all adjustments that are better than nothing, which are innovative, but really nothing worth looking into.
On the other hand, the rhythm of the story in The Invisible Guest has been damaged to a great extent, and the most notable point is that the film pursues reversal too much, sometimes completely for the sake of reversal.
The essence of a suspense film is not only in the reversal, but also in the logic of the story and the credibility of the characters, the reversal of the precious essence is not expensive, pay attention to a layer of progress and the water to the drain, ‘Contratiempo’ is a very good example (dual narrative + character relationship grinding), and ‘The Invisible Guest’ is more like Jo Wenna and The Invisible Guest is more like Jo Wenna and ‘Zheng Wei’ Lv Cheng talking to themselves the whole time, saying whatever they want, and flattening out what was originally a very thick pie.
My biggest impression of the film is the imposition of a bizarre social issue and class narrative.
Personally, I like it when commercial films add some social attributes, attacking the rich and powerful for their misdeeds, emphasising how difficult life is for the ordinary people, and how optimistic and resilient they are, as these always have a positive impact on the general public.
Strangely enough, The Invisible Guest’s inclusion of this line of dialogue didn’t endear it to me, but rather made me even more uncomfortable. …… Ultimately, it’s just that it does a poor job of trying to say the ‘right’ thing without scratching that ‘itch’. The itch is not scratched.
Directly related to the crime of Qiao Wenna and Ming Hao, a rich businessman’s wife and a member of parliament’s son, just out of the negative identity labels pulled full, but also the two of them may be the use of money and power for evil ability to put out, but as the story advances, and change the two into the orphanage grew up in the childhood sweethearts, to a large extent, the original persona on the ineffective.
Changing it is fine, it’s not impossible to make Qiao Wenna into someone who is afraid of leaving the mansion and is poor and evil, but she opens and closes her mouth about money, making it awkward for the thief, and Ming Hao is actually a bitter man with major depression …… So much for cancelling out the earlier critique altogether.
And, Hong sister and Lu Cheng in for Lu Ping, as well as to Qiao Wenna difficult, but also often not three or two sentences began to ‘how you rich people how bad, how we poor how bitter’ above leaning on the rationale of course can not be counted as a mistake, but the words can not be said, always have to make it clear that the people are not good, and then say that the rich people’s problems, right? The first up on the label to bring rhythm, this is to engage in public opinion tactics ……
As in the past, pedestrians or small battery and car accidents, whether it is not right or wrong to drive a person full responsibility, although it is also a kind of solution, but can not go on like this.
The Invisible Guest doesn’t really tie the newly added social issues into the characters or the story very well, it doesn’t achieve what it wants to, and it even backfires a bit, so I feel that this bit of innovation is just adding to the problem.
I’m not saying that The Invisible Guest is bad, but it’s not really good, and if you get the chance, you should check out the original Contratiempo.
Please specify：Yescase Store » The Invisible Guest 2023 Film Review: lit. draw legs on a snake (idiom); fig. ruin the effect by adding sth superfluous