Sum hon

My wife asked me to watch this film together. When I crawled into the blanket with her, I was a little put off by the sight of a Hong Kong actor (Francis Ng) with a gun in his hands. "It's bound to be a typical HK police-catch-thief movie", I told her, not having seen the title. But after a while, I found that it was the type my wife loves – Ghost Movie!!! Although it did not turn out to be purely of that genre, I was impressed by the scene where Athena Chu was brought to a crime scene by her psychotic sense, especially when she was looking down the steps and the murderer holding his victim suddenly flashes past her!!! That was the scariest part I thought, with brilliant cinematography. However, the alternate exchange of scenes of Athena at home and Francis at work prompts viewers to expect a scary scene thereafter. And the building up of tension inside Athena when she tried to switch off the lamps and shut the doors and hide herself under the blanket to bring out the scary scene was easily anticipated. With both good and bad the scary portion has to offer, the thriller side of this movie was pretty well written – foreshadows were excellently executed, and "clues" to rescue Athena (especially when Nick Cheung said before he pulled the trigger: "I'm the only one who can save your wife") led viewers to think that only Nick had the key to unlock the chains. It was through the detector's ability to link up all the "clues" and decipher Nick's words that he found the way to save his wife. This film is not action only, instead, it had a very strong theme in love and marriage, emphasized by the words of Athena when she was about to die. Although the cause for Athena's images of the supernatural was later revealed to be hypnotization by Nick, Francis' absence in marriage due to work was existent beforehand and is the key to her psychological vulnerability. Although it can be argued that the last scene explained her inherent psychotic capability, I would prefer to think that Athena was prone to psychotic sense only when her husband ignores her requests to stay with her and their time together should not be interrupted by his job, and this supports the theme of love and marriage of this movie. Overall, this is the best Hong Kong film I have watched so far, and the company of my wife definitely added to my rating of it!!!

XIN HAN (aka SHIVER) is more Serial Killer movie than a Horror film -- more David Fincher's SEVEN with a quirky sense of humor than any of the rash of horror films currently being churn out by the Hong Kong film industry.

Francis Ng makes an affable lead as the absent-minded cop who seems incapable of realizing that his ailing wife needs attention, since she's started to see strange visions in the aftermath of getting shot in the head. Ouch.

The film is oftentimes confusing, and seems to be playing up to expectations. It's by no means scary or a horror film, and its Third Act is more SILENCE OF THE LAMBS than THE EYE.

In short: Not so bad, especially if you like Francis Ng.

6 out of 10

SHIVER is a strange, low-key film which tries, somewhat unsuccessfully, to blend two genres into one. It starts off as a traditional ghost story, with a woman involved in an accident and subsequently finding herself subjected to out-of-body experiences in which she's accompanied by a ghostly girl and witnesses a string of murders committed by a vicious serial killer. The first half of the film is low key and unengaging, let down by Athena Chu's wishy-washy turn as the haunted housewife. I got the impression that Chu was struggling not to laugh during many of her so-called scare sequences, and sure enough a deleted scene reveals how many takes were needed before she managed to keep a straight face (the answer: lots). If the leading actress can't convince you then how's the rest of the film supposed to? Thankfully, things improve a notch during the second half of the production, when the protagonist dues shift over to Chu's cop husband, played by Hong Kong movie stalwart Francis Ng. The whole mood of the film changes tack, too, transforming from a slow-paced haunting affair to a suspenseful chase-focused thriller, with Ng hot on the heels of the aforementioned killer. There are car chases galore, stunts and as a whole the film is a lot more exciting and engaging. The acting isn't great – Ng is rather bland, although nowhere near as bad as Chu – but at least there's stuff happening. The ending, though, is a cop-out, hinging on a vital bit of information we aren't given until that point, which invariably left me feeling cheated rather than satisfied.

Although "Shiver" sets the viewer up to think he or she is watching a horror film, it is in reality an homage to the work and style of Alfred Hitchcock. The score is very remincencent of Bernard Hermann and the proceedings have a very noir quality.

Athena Chu plays a woman who is severely injured during a shootout involving her husband, an off duty cop. When she recovers, she finds herself haunted by images of a dead woman she has no memory of knowing, driving her to near madness. Meanwhile, her husband is taunted by a particularly vicious serial killer. These two stories converge into a finale of vengeance and blood.

Not for all tastes, but worth a look.

This film is AMAZING! I think this is one of the most powerful thrillers I have ever seen (trust me, I've made a career out of the thriller genre).

This film is so much more than a thriller, it is an examination of marriage and true love.

It is indeed confusing on the first viewing. This is the type of film (i.e. THE FIFTH ELEMENT, ROSENCRABTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, any thing written / directed by David Lynch)that you must watch more than once to understand why it's great. It's also not a film I would recommend for simple minds, it does require some involved thought process, Beautiful cinematography,Beautiful acting, beautifully written, beautiful direction, editing, sound, lighting... everything about this film is beautiful.