Futago 双子

A murder takes place in a small hotel – a young man is killed. The owners and guests of the hotel claim they know nothing and saw nothing, but the police detective (Tony Ho) handling the case suspects they are hiding something. And they are all very much afraid of the silent girl Mio (Shirata Hisako), who lives in room 306…

Futago is a Japanese word, and the fact that the lead actress here is Japanese is no coincidence. Hong Kong has produced quite a few horror films in recent decades, many of them "borrowed" from foreign counterparts, but Futago is perhaps the most straightforward attempt to copy the plot and style of a typical Japanese horror. The film is Japanese-slow, and its makers pay more attention to suspense than to attempts to scare with cheap makeup and cut-rate special effects — a sound decision.

The trouble is that there is nothing particularly frightening in Futago. From the very first scenes it is clear that Mio is the ghost of a dead girl, to whose death absolutely everyone involved in the case is somehow connected. It is not hard to figure this out — Mio's first appearance lasts a full ten minutes, with which the film opens. At the sight of her, all the hotel residents freeze, press themselves against the wall and seem to soil their pants, while she leisurely glides into room 306 and puts on a CD with a melodic ballad. Soon everyone around Mio will begin to die, but don't expect bulging eyes and bloodied claws — almost all the killings happen off-screen, and blood appears in the film only in the finale. Besides, the plot holds up reasonably well only at first — in the last half hour it goes off the rails and slides into complete incoherence.

Nevertheless, against the backdrop of other Hong Kong horror films of recent years, Futago looks very good indeed. First, there is a certain appealing sense of self-respect and style in this slowness (Edmond Fung's main profession is cinematography, and this is his first and so far last attempt at directing). Second, the film is quite harsh in terms of plot — the ghost spares even the elderly, so what can you say about young, healthy kids. No complaints about the actors either — Shirata Hisako doesn't seem all that threatening, but, for example, Tony Ho, who plays a policeman entangled in agonizing memories, and Samuel Pang in the role of an outright psychopath are quite convincing.