Sunday, March 16, 2025

The Occupant

 






The Occupant directed by Ronny Yu (1984). 
Here’s a film I saw as a trailer on the Deep Red VHS mixtape called Son of DR Deluxe (review here). 

Chow Yun Fat plays a cop who starts off catching pickpockets. Hansome Wong (Raymond Pak-Ming) an annoying car salesman makes bad jokes and tries to sell a lemon aka a shitty car. There are some white on white subs that blur together. If only I would learn Mandarin already!

sophistication and class

The bowl haircut main protagonist car salesman and his gal pal end up in a spooky house.He threatens to strip nude since there are ghosts? Ok whatevs! But wait, it turns out there is a haunting after-all! 

Great! Now I'm a fuggin mime!


Yun-fat’s police character busts up a massage parlor and hilarity ensues. The spectacled goof and his fem companion get freaked out at a seance. His girlfriend puts on clown makeup to try and frighten the hell outta him. When he falls off a ledge and winds up in female clothes Angie laughs at him! He claims that ghosts pushed him. This movie is very silly but entertaining enough to make you want to sit through the duration. 

Revenge of the Nerds HK Vacation


Officer Valentino (Yun-Fat) bullies Handsom Wong, the nerdy dude into submission and gets called a sex maniac! A ghostly hand raises up and slaps our bowl haircutted friend out of the building! This movie even throws a pop star ghost into the mix! This flick keeps tossing wacky wall wobblers at the wall to see what sticks! There’s lots of random half finished ideas.Why were they in such a hurry? 

I took all the drugs!


Angie goes to the library and uses the patented horror movie trope of the microfische machine. You know the one from the Amityville Horror (1979) and 100 other ghost /demon movies? This cinematic dud throws funny named characters at us like “Big Teeth” and "Poon". I did have to stop and start it a few times. 

It’s cool to see Shaw Brothers star Lo Leih as Chow Yun-Fat’s dad. Angie conjures up an evil spirit named Lisa Law, no really!Things erupt at a seance and Angie gets possessed!  It all ends with a wacky credit sequence that has lots of guitar wank. 

Ronny Yu has had a fascinating career! One of my favorites has always been The Bride with the White Hair (1993) I highly recommend checking out The Trial (1983) if you can find it. Later on, he directed Warriors of Virtue(1997), a strange kids film, Bride of Chucky (1998) and Freddy Vs Jason (2003)! I hate to say it but I was underwhelmed by the whole affair of that aforementioned slog. And yet this director really switched gears and just attained legendary status as the director who nailed the coffin in on two of the biggest horror stars to exist! I mean I'm not a fan but that franchise had to implode in a righteous way!It was at least memorable, this one not so much. Available to watch on archive.org
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