Invisible Killer is a classic police thriller, one based on a real-life news story, as was the director’s first film, The Last Level. It explores disturbing aspects of the world of virtual communication in a country which has hundreds of millions of cybernauts, and where the confines between public and private life are still blurred. The story takes place in Yangshan, a small town on an island in southern China. The police raid a hotel in search of a band of criminals and arrest a man that they mistake for one of the criminals due to his evasive attitude. It is Gao Fei, who tells the police that he is on the run not from the law, but from a group of vigilante cybernauts who blame him for having seduced Lin Yan, a married woman he met on the internet. After having read the accusation circulated on the web by the man’s husband, the vigilantes have launched a so-called “human flesh search” to flush out the guilty party. Encouraged by the sensationalistic-hungry local media, after having threatened him on the web, they are now seeking him out to physically punish him. He has gone on the run, losing his job and abandoning his family. The police let the man go, but the situation rapidly becomes more complicated when the mutilated corpse of Lin Yan is washed ashore by the sea. The task of uncovering the truth is entrusted to Zhang Yao, an intelligent and dogged female investigator who subjects Gao Fei to an intense interrogation. But the truth has many facets, and like the corpse of the woman, the volley of accusations, threats and morbid relationships the two lovers were involved in surface little by little, through a series of flashbacks which intercut the dialogue between Gao Fei and Zhang Yao. The central character is the investigator, superbly played by Feng Bo, who was inspired by Frances McDormand’s role in the Coen Brothers’ Fargo. The actress lived for two months in a police precinct to immerse herself in the role, and she agreed to undergo a notable physical transformation, which lends the film a sense of authenticity. Invisible Killer is the first film shot in China with the new digital Red One camera, was produced with a modest budget of 4 million RMB and shot in only 27 days. It deals with a current day issue of social relevance (the screenplay was in the hands of the censors for a long time before obtaining approval), but in the style of commercial cinema; the critical success obtained in China confirms that the director, who declared that the Coen Brothers were his model, made all the right choices.
Maria Barbieri