Review | Shadows movie review: Stephy Tang shines as a psychiatrist with a supernatural gift in stylish but narratively suspect crime mystery
- Stephy Tang plays a psychiatrist who can read her patients’ subconscious, and who suspects a rival doctor is making his patients commit murder
- She tracks down his patients with the help of Philip Keung’s police inspector in this odd crime mystery that is lifted by the performances of its cast
3.5/5 stars
In the psychological thriller Shadows, a supernaturally gifted psychiatrist who can look into her patients’ subconscious encounters a senior rival who may be turning his patients into murderers.
The first feature film directed by Singaporean filmmaker Glenn Chan Chi-man, this is a stylistically accomplished, if narratively suspect, film. It would probably work better as an open-ended psychodrama than the crime mystery it purports to be.
The film opens with the case of Chu (Justin Cheung Kin-seng), a social worker who kills all three members of his family before making a suicide attempt.
Invited by the police forensics unit to assess Chu’s mental state, psychiatrist Dr Tsui (Stephy Tang Lai-yan) soon finds a connection to Dr Yan (Tse Kwan-ho), a veteran psychiatrist who has recently returned to Hong Kong to set up a clinic.
With the help of police inspector Ho (Philip Keung Ho-man), a single father with an often neglected young daughter (Keira Wang Sze-nga), Tsui begins to track down Yan’s patients one by one – confidentiality issues be damned – in case any of them is turning into the next murderer under Yan’s manipulation.
Little could they imagine the full impact of Yan’s persuasive powers, however.
While Shadows suggests the patients are all influenced by the ever smirking Yan to commit their crimes, it doesn’t let us into the nominal villain’s motivation or methods – other than brief scenes in which Yan urges his clients to be “selfish” and embrace their “dark side”.
It’s also unclear why Tsui, whose ability to read others’ minds in their presence initially helps her win Ho’s trust, never uses that tactic to crack Yan.
Despite frequent lapses of logic in the screenplay co-scripted by Chang Kai-xiang and Mani Man Pui-hing, the thriller is compelling thanks to the performances Chan draws from his cast.
Jennifer Yu Heung-ying and Babyjohn Choi Hon-yick have their moments, respectively as a woman privately abused by her husband and a schoolteacher cracking under pressure. Meanwhile, Ling Man-lung briefly steals the show as a nursing home carer with a wicked plan.
Shadows is at its most effective when it follows Tsui into visually inventive dream sequences reconstructed from her patients’ traumatic memories, but is considerably less so when it poses, verbally and repeatedly, the pompous philosophical question “Are humans innately good or evil?” – and fails to provide any remotely interesting answer.
Through it all, Tang’s character, albeit saddled with a tragic family past of her own, does remain a calming presence for the audience. The former pop idol is fast becoming one of the most reliable Hong Kong actresses of her generation.
