The lights went up. The audience had been reduced by a full third. Dave glanced from those filing out to Fiona. She looked back at him before rising and exiting. Dave followed.
Outside, as they headed back to the subway, Dave asked, “What the fuck just happened?”
Fiona frowned. “I have no idea.”
“Is there something I missed because…well, because I’m…not…” He didn’t know how to say it: Because I’m not Chinese.
But a glance at Fiona told him that wasn’t the case. “No. Maybe it’s the way the movie is shot…? It does look like a horror film.”
Shrugging, Dave said, “Maybe, but…that one woman screamed. That’s a pretty intense reaction to something that just looks like a horror movie. And what was that word that one woman used…?”
“Gui—‘ghost.’ ”
That night, back in his hotel room, Dave took a break from working on the script to google comments on Family. Major reviews all covered it as a family drama. An article in the South China Morning Post noted that NRTA was reconsidering the film, “which some have described as a frightening ghost story.” Another article mentioned that Fan Lung had come out of retirement to play the patriarch because his granddaughter had begged him to, but had died when he had one day of shooting left (they’d restructured the script to accommodate the loss). Dave remembered Fan Lung as a handsome young martial arts master in the Shaw Brothers kung fu epics of the ’70s; he’d starred in the comedic-action film My Cousin the Boxer, a performance that was said to have been hugely influential on Jackie Chan. Just when Fan had been set to become an international star, he’d been in a terrible car accident that he’d never fully recovered from, making it impossible for him to continue as a physically active actor.
Family was the only film he’d made since 1979. It was his granddaughter Fan Chiu-yi’s first film, and had earned her high critical marks…and more than a little controversy. In interviews she avoided any discussion of the film as a ghost story, preferring to talk instead about what it had been like directing her grandfather.
That night, Dave dreamed of finding himself in a towering, shadowy place he recognized from photos as the Kowloon Walled City. He wandered its gloomy corridors, lit by flickering fluorescents, the sky nothing but a gray sliver thirteen stories overhead. The floors were slick with noxious moisture, unidentifiable trash piled in dim corners. He thought he was alone, but then he glimpsed a face, just a flash of a grimace, in the doorway of an unlit apartment. He grew increasingly uneasy, unable to find a way out, anxious. When he heard the thunderous crashes of walls crumbling, the booms of demolition explosions, his dread forced him to run, and run—
He awoke to find rain pattering against his hotel window, and a text from Fiona on his phone: Guess what? Fan Chiu-yi coming 2 offices 2day for meeting, 11 am.
Twenty minutes later Dave was heading for the subway entrance. He’d made a habit of stopping at a local bakery every morning for a custard tart and a yuenyeung, the popular regional mix of coffee and tea that Fiona called “Chinese coffee.” He liked the young girl who worked at the bakery; she was trying to learn English, and Dave enjoyed helping her out in exchange for picking up a few choice Cantonese phrases. She told Dave she wanted to be called Anita, and that someday she hoped to travel to his hometown of Los Angeles.
When he saw her this morning, though, she looked ill and was shaking so badly that she slopped much of his drink before getting it into his paper cup. He knew she’d lost her grandmother several weeks ago, but she’d said she’d barely known the old lady, who lived on a farm outside Shenzhen.
“Nei ho ma?” he asked, trying to get the inflections right.
Anita shook her head. “Mo ah. Last night I see this movie. I am so scare I do not sleep.”
Dave asked, “Was the movie Family?”
Anita looked at him. “Hai ah. You see it?”
He nodded.
She asked, “You are not scare?”
Somehow feeling guilty, Dave said, “No. Why did it scare you so much?”
Busying herself with getting his tart, the girl answered, “The gui—the ghost. It is very scary. Green, and big head.” She placed the tart in a cardboard box and gestured with her hands around her head.
Without further comment, Dave paid for his tart and yuenyeung, wished Anita well, and walked away, thinking: There are two cuts of the film out there. It’s the only possible answer.
* * *
At eleven thirty, Dave looked up from the desk Fiona had loaned him to see her approaching with another young woman. Where Fiona was tall and chic, the other woman was smaller, with spiky blue hair, a leather jacket, and torn jeans. “Dave, this is Fan Chiu-yi.” Fiona turned and spoke to the other woman in Cantonese; the woman listened, smiled, extended a hand to Dave. She had a confident grip and eyes that assessed him quickly.
Dave said, “I’m so pleased to meet you. Congratulations on the success of Family.”
As Fiona translated, Dave was slightly disappointed to realize that Fan Chiu-yi spoke no English, although his deeper disappointment was in his own inability to grasp Cantonese. After a brief exchange, Fiona turned to Dave. “She says we can call her Chiu-yi. She’s going to join us for lunch.”
“Oh, fantastic.”
Fiona led the way to a huge restaurant on the second floor of the skyscraper that housed Dragon Galaxy’s production offices; the restaurant was still serving dim sum, the carts loaded with small plates of food moving between tables, and Fiona selected various items for the three of them. As they sampled steamed buns filled with barbecued pork, siu mai with quail’s egg, and spareribs with black bean sauce, Fiona served as interpreter. Fiona spoke to Chiu-yi, gesturing and nodding at Dave, who wondered what she was saying. When Chiu-yi smiled broadly at Dave, Fiona said, “I just told her that you know all of her grandfather’s movies.”
“Yes, I’m a big fan. I especially love the work he did with Chor Yuen. The Cursed Blade is an underrated classic.”
Fiona translated, and the look on Chiu-yi’s face told Dave that she genuinely approved. When she was done speaking, Fiona said, “That was her grandfather’s favorite of his movies. She wishes you could have met him. He loved to talk about his film work.”
Dave asked, “Why did he stop acting for so long?”
Fiona gave the question to Chiu-yi, and then turned back to Dave with her answer. “He didn’t believe he was a real actor. He always thought of himself as more of a stuntman.”
“That’s a pity. He’s really good in Family.”
Chiu-yi glowed, responded. Fiona said, “She’s glad you think that. She told him the same thing, but he didn’t believe her. He loved movies; if he hadn’t had that heart attack at the end of shooting, he might have had a whole second career.”
The conversation wandered through Fan Lung’s career, what he’d done after leaving the film industry (real estate, which he’d been good at), and how he’d provided most of the financing for Family. When the talk turned to that film’s script, Chiu-yi stopped eating and looked down at her food, melancholy. She spoke for a while; Fiona listened intently, waiting for the other woman to finish before turning to Dave. “She says that while much of Family is based on her life, the part that isn’t is what happened after her grandfather died. In the movie, the son returns from Canada for the old man’s funeral, but in real life she has brothers in both Canada and Beijing who didn’t come for Grandfather’s funeral. It was very upsetting.”
Dave decided it was now or never. He pushed his plates aside and leaned forward. “Chiu-yi, why did you make two cuts of the movie?”
Fiona’s eyes widened; Dave realized the possibility had somehow not occurred to her before. After a second, she turned to Chiu-yi and asked the question.
The young director’s response was a bitter laugh, followed by a short answer that Fiona translated as “I did
n’t.”
“Then who did?”
“No one. There’s only one cut.”
Fiona and Dave exchanged a look before Fiona leaned in to ask something of her own. Dave was surprised to see that Chiu-yi was on the verge of tears as she answered; it wasn’t a reaction he’d expected.
Fiona said, “She says she’s seen the film probably hundreds of times, between the editing process and all the screenings since, and she doesn’t understand what’s going on. She says she didn’t make a horror movie.”
Dave felt a rush of pity for Fan Chiu-yi. He knew that companies like Dragon Galaxy were talking to her because she’d made a film that had deeply affected enough of the audience to become a genuine cultural phenomenon, but she had no idea what she’d done or how to do it again.
Chiu-yi cried openly then, softly, lowering her head to the restaurant table, talking in such low tones that Fiona had to lean in to hear her. When Chiu-yi finished, Fiona leaned back in the padded booth and took a deep breath.
“What?” Dave asked.
“She says that she’s asked people what they see in the film. They describe a terrifying ghost that appears in the background of shots, lurking in the dark. Although it’s greenish and has a misshapen head, they say it’s definitely the grandfather in the film—Fan Lung, her real grandfather.”
After that, Chiu-yi wouldn’t talk anymore about Family. They finished lunch and she left, thanking Fiona but making it clear that she didn’t expect a callback from Dragon Galaxy.
When she was gone, Dave asked, “Will you hire her?”
Fiona shrugged. “She says she wants to make dramas, but those don’t make money. We need horror movies. I’ll talk to her.”
* * *
Dave took that night away from the script for Hard Chase to see Family again. He found another theater, this one in Mong Kok, where it was playing. The evening showing was two-thirds full.
He stared hard at the screen. He was more impressed with Fan Chiu-yi’s directing and writing skills this time, thought it was probably to Dragon Galaxy’s detriment that they wouldn’t make a dramatic film with her…but there was no ghost.
When a woman three seats away jerked in shock, he squinted, focusing on the parts of the image that shaded off into deeper hues.
There was nothing there. Despite the fact that two seats down a man cursed in Cantonese, upsetting his soda.
By the time the film was over, he’d never felt like such an outsider before.
* * *
An hour later, in his hotel room, Dave looked again for online information on Family. He found some grainy photos someone had shot during a showing of the film, purporting to have captured the “ghost.” He saw a slight distortion in the photos, but nothing like the horrific specter that had been reported by those who found the film frightening. He chalked it up to power of suggestion, the human tendency to see what you wanted to see.
He was reminded of a paranormal investigation he’d once attended as research for a horror screenplay he’d been hired to develop. The investigation had taken place inside a house on the edge of Hollywood that was supposedly haunted; he’d been present with an investigator, a medium, and five others who’d each paid handsomely (as he had) to attend. They’d met at the house, a rental currently empty, at ten p.m. By two a.m., the investigator had demonstrated the use of K2 meters (to measure fluctuations in electromagnetic energy), voice recorders, and even dowsing rods, claiming varying levels of success in “contacting the spirits who are present here.” At three a.m., he’d sat with the others in a completely darkened room on the ground floor, next to a seemingly levelheaded college professor who’d abruptly blurted out that something was touching him.
Dave had felt nothing. When he’d listened to the audio recordings later on, where others said they heard voices, he heard only the uneven thrum of white noise, sounding like an electronic wind rustling unreal trees. The professor had been sincerely unnerved, as had a secretary and a special effects expert, and he believed them all; he just didn’t believe they’d been contacted by spirits of the dead. He couldn’t explain what they had experienced.
Now, three years after that night, feeling lonely and hungry and curious, he made his way out of his hotel room to the bakery and was pleased to find it still open and Anita working. He ordered a yuenyeung and two French baguettes. As he paid, he asked Anita, “What you were telling me yesterday, about being scared by that movie…”
“Yes. With the gui.”
“Right. I was wondering…have you ever seen ghosts anywhere else?”
“Yes. When I am twelve, my auntie die, and one week after I see her. And last year, during Yu Lan, I see shui gui—water ghost—in ocean where man drown.”
Dave thought for a second. “Yu Lan…that’s…”
“Hungry Ghost Festival. When gui come home.”
Dave nodded, thanked Anita, and started to leave with his purchases. She called after him just before he reached the shop’s door. “There are many gui. Some do not haunt in houses.”
“Do jeh,” Dave said, thanking her before making his way out into the damp Hong Kong night.
* * *
When he saw Fiona at work the next day, he asked her if Dragon Galaxy was going to work with Fan Chiu-yi.
“I don’t think so. I talked to her after lunch yesterday and told her we’d love to make another horror film with her, but she said, ‘I didn’t make a horror film. My brothers did.’ ”
“Her brothers?” Dave thought back to the meeting yesterday. “The ones who didn’t come back from Canada and Beijing for Fan Lung’s funeral?”
Fiona nodded. “Yes.”
“Why would she say that?”
Fiona sipped from her cup of tea, considering her answer. “Chinese people believe that sometimes ghosts come about if they haven’t been properly honored at the funeral and burial.”
Dave asked, “Do the Chinese believe everyone can see ghosts? Or only some people?”
Fiona eyed him quizzically. “I think all people, but…maybe it is only some. What do you think?”
“What if it’s something we’re either born with or not, like eye color or musical skills?”
“But can’t you learn to play music?” Fiona asked. Her phone rang then, and she excused herself to answer.
When she came back, she had some new script notes for Hard Chase. There was no more time to talk about Family.
* * *
Two days later, he was at the offices trying to wrestle the last act of Hard Chase into shape when his phone rang. He saw his mother’s name on the screen, felt the dread in his gut before he answered.
“Dave, it’s Mom.” Her voice hitched. “It’s Dad…he had a massive stroke this morning, and he—he’s gone.” She burst into tears.
All the strength went out of Dave’s body. He even dropped the phone for a second before finding enough energy to lift it to his ear again. His mother was saying something about how it had been quick, he hadn’t suffered, the funeral—
“I’ll be home tomorrow, Mom.”
“Can you try to call your brother? I haven’t been able to get through to him.”
“I will.”
He wasn’t scheduled to leave Hong Kong for another three days, but when he told Fiona what had happened, she made arrangements and got him on a flight out of Hong Kong in three hours. He’d have just enough time to grab his things at the hotel and get to the airport.
Numb, feeling drained and leaden, he haphazardly stuffed his clothes into his suitcase, dropped his key at the front desk, and fell into the car Fiona had arranged to take him to the airport. “Don’t worry about the script,” she’d told him, “we’ll pick it up again when you’re settled. I’m so sorry, Dave.”
On the ride to the airport, he texted his brother, Matt, but got no immediate answer. He put his phone away and t
hought about the last time he’d seen his father. It’d been three months ago, when he’d visited the family home in Sacramento. His father had asked him how the screenwriting business was going; Dave could sense the disappointment when he said there were a lot of irons out there but no fires yet.
Last week when Dave had called from Hong Kong, his dad had been impressed when told that the company was covering his travel and paying him. “That’s great, Davey.”
Dave tried to grasp life without his father, and felt disconnected, shut down. He barely made it through airport security and onto his flight.
An hour out from Hong Kong, Dave turned on the screen mounted on the seat back before him. Flicking through the movie selections, he stopped when he saw it:
Family.
His fingers were shaking when he plugged in the headset and started the movie. Even on the small, muddy airplane screen, Fan Lung’s performance seemed poignant now, though his character was stern, unyielding in his devotion to bygone traditions and beliefs.
Then he died.
Dave leaned forward in his seat, peering into the pixels on the small monitor. He remembered where audience members had first gasped and uttered, “Gui,” and as that point approached he felt a knot form in his stomach.
The granddaughter and mother were in the kitchen talking…
There. What had he just seen? That flash, in the unlit far corner…had it been an aberration of static, or a form, a glow, an awful, eyeless face?
Dave turned the movie off and ripped the headset away, so cold he was quivering. He unwrapped the thin airplane blanket, tugged it around himself, and imagined being in his own kitchen at home, hugging Mom while something watched from the darkness, roiling with cold fury at how it had been dishonored.
Final Cuts Page 12
