Intruder (1996)

INTRUDER (1996)
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Poster for one of my favorite HK films ever! The 1996 Milkyway/Win's Entertainment co-production ,INTRUDER, is the warped brain child of prolific writer turned director for this film only, Sammy Tsang Kan-cheung. Almost completely different in tone from Tsang's other written works which include ROYAL WARRIORS, MY HEART IS THAT ETERNAL ROSE, KING OF COMEDY, SHAOLIN SOCCER, and KUNG FU HUSTLE (how is THAT for a resume?), INTRUDER is a relentlessly dirty thriller that can be fairly compared to darker Hitchcock. Equating the films proceedings to Hitchcock's PSYCHO is understandable as the wonderful Wu Chien-lien sheds her A MOMENT OF ROMANCE persona and rips into this cold blooded killer character.

Wu Chien-Lien

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INTRUDER rumbles along loudly only stopping for brief moments for gasps of air. Thunder and rain bang and pound for the majority of the film leaving an uneasy feeling within the viewer. A true sense of foreboding doom wreaks from beginning to end, not only in it's dark and shadowy style, but it's subtextual pre-handover theme (Yes. That overused chestnut) is surely felt and strikingly palpable. As a HK cinema outsider and picking up the cinema in it's pre-handover run-up to 1997, I was served heaping helpings of film and film comment of 'pre-handover jitters' theory and rhetoric. As a newbie around the time and eager to lap up any info esoterically HK cinema, I saw allegory in almost everything. Whether the 'jitters' were gospel or not is/was debatable. I really don't know? I wasn't there? Stories of HK talent defecting to the open arms and wallets of U.S. producers was a story oft told at the time so it certainly seems that there was tremendous trepidation, at least in the film biz. And the stories put on film in the late 80's early 90's point to a frightening infiltration by Mainlanders often portrayed as country bumpkins or brutal 'Big Circle Gang' types. Maybe the audience felt the pangs as well?

All of that nonesense aside, INTRUDER does swell with handover allegory. At least to this viewer. Wu Chien-lien's character is indeed a dangerous intruder from north of the border. Maniacal in her quest to secure a 'hongkies' existence for her and her hubby, played by Moses Chan Ho. Once Chien-lien sows the seeds of murder in the opening minutes by graphically and in a highly stylized yet tough to watch strangulation scene, she is straight as a blade and feral in her pursuit. By showing mucho depravity towards her antithesis, lazy and content to be Wayne Lai Yiu-cheung, a distinct separation of character traits, not only personal to the characters themselves but relayed to their respective peers as well, is created. Lai representing the comfortable layman of Hong Kong and Wu eerily echoing the unknown mainland interlopers to the north that could quite possibly infiltrate, saturate, and eventually change the existence of Hong Kong's denizens. While visually creepy and dangerous, with rough scenes of brutality, it's INTRUDER's fear of the unknown that really strikes home with a viewer or a viewing public facing an uncertain future?

Wayne Lai Yiu-cheung

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Ok, so, enough of that trash talk. There is such a thing as over analyzing a film. This blog is supposed to be quick and fun. So I won't get into other subtextual aspects of the film and what I think about the inclusion of Lai's poor daughter and the terror this little one goes through. I'll let you watch the film yourself. Hey! Look at my cool poster, everyone!

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That this is the lowest grossing Milkyway film,and virtually 'torpedoed Wu Chien-lien's film career'(thanks YTSL) is incredibly sad and defies my logic? This is not shiny happy people New Year's cinema or populous warm and fuzzy Wong Jing shenanigan's. INTRUDER was possible truth that people didn't want to face? Wayne Lai Yiu-cheung's character thus perfectly defining the HK audience. If I don't see it, it's not there. I'm just riffing here folks. I could be ALL wrong? =)

I rarely, if ever, use superlatives such as 'brilliant', 'genius' or 'masterpiece', often finding them overused and their meaning compromised, but with INTRUDER, I don't struggle to use these words in their most true forms. It IS a masterpiece in my eyes and in form extremely refreshing and different from what was showing in Hong Kong's theaters at the time. It's theme, considering it's time and place in the regions cinema is esoterically HK, but taken in a more broad sense is a globally frightening and entertaining thriller. Brutal and beautiful.

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For another take on this wonderful film, plus a few screen shots, click on over to A Hero Never Dies. He's easing into his CAT III film watching like an old man easing into a warm bath (thanks Seinfeld). Carefully. It's a treat to see a HK film fan of over 20 years take his first tentative steps into this 'specialized' genre. Good stuff.