Fourteen Days Before Suicide

Director: Ally Wong Ka-fai
Year: 1999
Rating: 5.5

Great title. Not such a great horror movie. Though taking into account the complete lack of budget, it could have been a lot worse. Most of the film takes place in a few rooms that they barely bother to furnish. Special effects consist of a few moving chairs, slamming doors and green lights. Of course if you have a great script, a large budget and special effects are not really needed. There is a kernel of a good idea here, but it never quite comes to fruition. Still I prefer a horror film like this that depends on atmospherics rather than a lot of slicing and splattering.
 

A woman wakes up from a frightening nightmare in which her husband waves casually at her and then leaps off a rooftop to his death. The husband, Simon Lui, is an elevator maintenance man in a building that seems to have its share of bad karma. He meets a woman in the elevator and then meets her again a few minutes later when she ends up on the sidewalk next to him – from a death leap.
 

Suicide seems to be contagious and soon the building has its share of ghosts inhabiting the place. Shermin Yiu starts a new job working for Christine Ng. Call me crazy, but after seeing chairs move by themselves and then a ghost in the bathroom, I would be looking for a new place of employment. I don't like ghosts in the bathroom - that crosses the line of good etiquette. It doesn't bother Shermin though who explains that she really needs this job. I guess so – because she stays even after finding a finger in the soup. This is the basic weakness of this film – and many horror films – people don’t act very wisely. If you see a ghost – run like hell – don’t look back - don't turn back – is a credo that I live by!
 

Another thread has Pinky Cheung as a jealous fiancée who is slowly going insane and seeing ghosts and images of her boyfriend having a “monkey affair” with Shermin. Her best friend Almen Wong tells her to see a doctor. They run into a fortuneteller on the street who tells Pinky to get prepared for her funeral. Cheerful words to live by – or die by.
 

The main reason – if there is one – to perhaps see this film is the number of young actresses that populate it. Pinky Cheung is quite good, Shermin may have potential and the wife is also not too bad. Almen Wong’s part is fairly small – and I continue to be disappointed that she has not shown up in any good action roles since Her Name is Cat.
 

Ryan's Box Office report mentions that Fourteen Days before Suicide is the first movie produced by a new film company S.W.A.T., which is going to produce 13 movies according to their press conference.