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"Who would kidnap a poor fool?"
Victim was a film in search of an identity. Was it horror? A psychological thriller? Or a simple crime drama? Pick one of or all three, just don’t expect the story to always make sense. Tony Leung Ka Fai and Lau Ching Wan were the glue that held everything together.
After a murder in a parking garage, the police think they know who the prime suspect is. Only problem being he appears to be a victim of kidnapping. The kidnapper tells Ma Manson’s girlfriend Amy Fu that her boyfriend can be found in the abandoned Mountain View Hotel. Detective Pitt Kwan enters the haunted hotel on a dark and stormy night. He discovers Ma hanging upside down where a man had killed his wife and then his son and himself thirty years prior. Ma’s personality drastically changes after the incident upsetting Amy, leading her to wonder if he’s been possessed. Pitt, on the other hand, is suspicious that Ma is putting on an act for some criminally nefarious reason.
The film started off creepily enough with strange goings on in the old hotel. Then it switched gears. After being fired from his job, Ma and Amy had hit hard times with the bank threatening to foreclose on their house. His motivation for criminal behavior seemed reasonable. Lau Ching Wan put on a good show of a man beginning to unravel. Amy Kwok made the most of her devoted girlfriend role. Despite Ma acting irrationally, Amy stayed with Ma when any woman with common sense would have fled the scene with no forwarding address. Tony Leung Ka Fai (Big Tony) twitched his way through workaholic Pit’s relentlessness and chain smoking. All three performances helped paper over the plot holes.
Victim’s supernatural element vanished like a ghost in the morning sun early in the film. What remained was a psychological thriller with villains and victims switching roles when necessary. There was one long car chase that seemed ill-advised and illegal. Pit was going to have a heck of a time explaining the damage to his car to the insurance company. The police vacillated between conducting themselves by the book and loose cannons who didn’t play by the rules. Cops could be overly zealous and brutal, whether questioning a villain or victim. Pit and his partner shot at shadows, going against the number one rule of gun safety-don’t shoot at what you can’t see. That shadow might belong to a friend. Another time, volatile Pit pulled a gun in a public place on a civilian. Everyone was wound tightly, making me wonder if they shouldn’t have been questioning whether Pit and even Amy were possessed.
Despite a number of plot holes, unanswered questions, whiplash inducing changes in genre, Victim was a tense film with entertaining moments. The three leads played a major role in the more successful aspects of the film. Whether they could chalk up their odd behavior to ghostly possession or lack of impulse control was the eerie question. I thought the final scene was a perfect ending for a genre busting film. Instead of group therapy (though they were all in need of it!), maybe Pit, Amy, and Ma should have found a coupon for group exorcising.
25 October 2026
Trigger warnings: Smoking. Big gooey worms. A disgusting vomiting scene. A man being dis-armed. Some gore. A bare male bottom.
After a murder in a parking garage, the police think they know who the prime suspect is. Only problem being he appears to be a victim of kidnapping. The kidnapper tells Ma Manson’s girlfriend Amy Fu that her boyfriend can be found in the abandoned Mountain View Hotel. Detective Pitt Kwan enters the haunted hotel on a dark and stormy night. He discovers Ma hanging upside down where a man had killed his wife and then his son and himself thirty years prior. Ma’s personality drastically changes after the incident upsetting Amy, leading her to wonder if he’s been possessed. Pitt, on the other hand, is suspicious that Ma is putting on an act for some criminally nefarious reason.
The film started off creepily enough with strange goings on in the old hotel. Then it switched gears. After being fired from his job, Ma and Amy had hit hard times with the bank threatening to foreclose on their house. His motivation for criminal behavior seemed reasonable. Lau Ching Wan put on a good show of a man beginning to unravel. Amy Kwok made the most of her devoted girlfriend role. Despite Ma acting irrationally, Amy stayed with Ma when any woman with common sense would have fled the scene with no forwarding address. Tony Leung Ka Fai (Big Tony) twitched his way through workaholic Pit’s relentlessness and chain smoking. All three performances helped paper over the plot holes.
Victim’s supernatural element vanished like a ghost in the morning sun early in the film. What remained was a psychological thriller with villains and victims switching roles when necessary. There was one long car chase that seemed ill-advised and illegal. Pit was going to have a heck of a time explaining the damage to his car to the insurance company. The police vacillated between conducting themselves by the book and loose cannons who didn’t play by the rules. Cops could be overly zealous and brutal, whether questioning a villain or victim. Pit and his partner shot at shadows, going against the number one rule of gun safety-don’t shoot at what you can’t see. That shadow might belong to a friend. Another time, volatile Pit pulled a gun in a public place on a civilian. Everyone was wound tightly, making me wonder if they shouldn’t have been questioning whether Pit and even Amy were possessed.
Despite a number of plot holes, unanswered questions, whiplash inducing changes in genre, Victim was a tense film with entertaining moments. The three leads played a major role in the more successful aspects of the film. Whether they could chalk up their odd behavior to ghostly possession or lack of impulse control was the eerie question. I thought the final scene was a perfect ending for a genre busting film. Instead of group therapy (though they were all in need of it!), maybe Pit, Amy, and Ma should have found a coupon for group exorcising.
25 October 2026
Trigger warnings: Smoking. Big gooey worms. A disgusting vomiting scene. A man being dis-armed. Some gore. A bare male bottom.
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