Visible Secret (2001)

Ann Hui’s Visible Secret had a competent story at its core, but the implementation of it failed. Perhaps through editing problems, apparently the mass transit authority objected to parts of the story, or just poor choices, there were some issues with the story. Shu Qi and Eason Chan were charismatic enough to keep my attention through much of the film though.

Fifteen years ago, a man fell under a tram and lost his head. The old death haunts the present as the ghost possesses various people to exact his revenge. June (Wong Siu Kam) is able to see the dead out of her left eye. She and Peter (Wong Choi) hook up one night and become engulfed in the vengeful apparition’s plans.

Shu Qi was luminescent in the role of the young woman who could see the dead. Eason’s character was all over the place, never sure if June was supporting him or part of the malevolent ghost’s plans. Sam Lee was Eason’s best bud Simon who tried to keep Peter employed. Kara Hui played a mother possessed by not one, but two ghosts and gave a thrilling performance.

Visible Secret wasn’t a scary film in the classic horror style. It ended up being a story where the living and the dead inhabited the same spaces with little in the way of telling them apart. People were often possessed, sometimes for nefarious purposes and sometimes because they wanted to see old friends. The film’s vengeful headless debt collector didn’t quite match up even with Washington Irving’s tame Sleepy Hollow. The titular secret was highly visible and not so secret. Unfortunately, the unevenness of the story encumbered what could have been an interesting tale of entwined spooky, if not scary, lives lost and filled with regret.

29 October 2025

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