Three

Co-ordinated by Peter Chan's Applause Pictures in HK, this East Asian ghost story omnibus was produced to foster closer links between the region's film industries. Unusually for such projects, it has no weak segment. Kim's opener goes for psycho-horror: a man whose wife has gone missing consults a doctor about his constant dizziness and blackouts; meanwhile his wife wakes in an eerie satellite town that's still under construction and tries to find her way home. The pay-off is notably gruesome. Nonzee's centrepiece is the most conventional (it's framed as a cautionary dream), but redeemed by its elliptical storytelling and snazzy digital effects. The ambitious leader of a temple dance troupe considers founding a more prestigious and lucrative puppet theatre troupe, but his dream suggests that he will ignore the malign spirits inhabiting puppets at his peril. Peter Chan's closer is a minor classic in its own right. A single-parent cop (Tsang) and his young son take temporary housing in a condemned block where the only other resident is a reclusive herbalist from China (Lai). The doctor has an incredible secret (he is poised to bring his dead wife back to life, for the best of reasons) and kidnaps the cop to protect it. Chan's film does involve ghosts (a phantom child, a derelict photo studio) but its elegiac love story catches the mood of present day realities in HK surprisingly acutely. (A 'Director's Cut' of Coming Home running 61 minutes has been released on DVD.