1/5 stars
The locked-room murder is a classic format of the mystery genre, tackled by such titans of the craft as Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie and Seishi Yokomizo. All have been drawn to the apparent impossibilities of solving a crime committed within the confines of a sealed space from which there is seemingly no means of escape.
Chen’s film ups the ante even further, intertwining the locked-room premise with a Usual Suspects-style interrogation stand-off. But in doing so, it becomes so convoluted and confusing it threatens to choke its audience out.
Continuing one of the most infuriating trends in recent Chinese cinema, The Invisible Guest unfolds in a non-specific Southeast Asian country just beyond the reach of the Chinese judicial system.
There the poor are routinely exploited, the rich are irrevocably corrupt, and local law enforcement is bumbling and inept, but conveniently the protagonists can speak fluent Mandarin whenever the narrative dictates.
In a gender switch from the Spanish version, Joanna (Janine Chang Chun-ning) is the wealthy young bride of a powerful local entrepreneur.
Joanna is accused of murder after the police find her in a locked hotel room, clutching a bloodied knife, next to the dead body of her lover, Minghao (Yin Zheng).
She claims they were both attacked by a mysterious assailant, who apparently vanished from the scene without a trace.
With just hours to go before the police file their report, which is likely to see Joanna convicted, detective Zheng Wei (Greg Hsu Kuang-han) grants her two hours to recount her version of events in confidence, and convince him of her innocence.
Told through a series of flashbacks, Joanna’s story almost immediately implicates Minghao in another murder, before revealing a tangle of shocking surprises.
Where Paulo’s film flaunted a stylish swagger that permitted viewers to relish the film’s increasingly preposterous plot, Chen demands that we take this pile-on of increasingly melodramatic contrivances with the utmost sincerity, even as characters persist in behaving as no human being would.
The result is an exasperating cascade of incomprehensible drivel, spurred on by the repeated misconception that narrative incoherence equates to genuine mystery.