Insanity is a 2015 movie directed by David Lee
purporting to be a psychological thriller, with Hong Kong’s Sean Lau and China’s
Huang Xiaoming as the leads. Fiona Sit,
Alex Fong and Paw Hee-ching supported the cast.
Sean Lau played a man who descended into schizophrenia
and pushed his wife out of a window after the death of his son. Freakishly, his wife landed on the pavement
below their apartment, a tad too late for her inconsolable mother. As his psychiatrist, Huang Xiaoming deemed
Sean to have recovered from schizophrenia three years after he was committed to
an asylum by the courts and recommended that Sean be discharged, much to the
opposition of his colleagues who feared the public and media’s reaction should
news of Sean’s release be known, and especially should Sean have a relapse.
As Sean sought to live a normal life after his
release, his mother-in-law started harassing him, forcing Sean to job and
house-hop in an attempt to avoid his mother-in-law.
Fearful of his reputation being tarnished should
Sean be jailed for the murder of a drug addict, Huang Xiaoming had Sean locked
up in a room to continue his treatment.
The result was an increasingly emboldened Sean and an increasingly desperate
Huang Xiaoming.
The end of Insanity was a twist. Instead of Huang Xiaoming treating Sean, the
2nd half of Insanity was in fact Huang Xiaoming descending into his
own schizophrenia. He had projected his
own insanity on a non-existent Sean and it was only Huang Xiaoming himself in
the locked room all along. Fearful of
his hereditary condition (Huang Xiaoming’s mother killed herself due to
schizophrenia), Huang Xiaoming refused to have children with his girlfriend
Fiona. However, Fiona was revealed to be
pregnant and promised to wait for Huang Xiaoming to recover from schizophrenia.
Insanity examined the heavy topic of mental
health, more specifically that of schizophrenia. Modern society was stressful and while schizophrenia
could manifest itself and tip people over the edge, there was the possibility
of recovery, as fleshed out by Sean Lau.
Schizophrenia could also be hereditary, in Huang Xiaoming’s case. However, with intervention, appropriate
treatment and strong support from family and friends, as demonstrated by Fiona
and Alex, Huang Xiaoming’s recovery was hopeful.
While Insanity was promoted as a Hong Kong movie,
I thought it wasn’t as Hong Kong as the 2016 Mad World 一念无明, which explored bipolar
illness, and had a tighter cast. In
Insanity, Sean Lau turned in a dependable performance as a man who lost it
after the death of his son and thought his wife was unfaithful to him. Paw Hee-ching as usual turned in a dependable
performance. The selection of Alex Fong
and Fiona Sit for Insanity seemed strange to me. In their roles, both were believable. Alex Fong as the irritating colleague who
seemed ready to steal Huang Xiaoming’s lunch anytime, and Fiona as a social
worker and girlfriend of Huang Xiaoming.
However, both did not seem to have enough on-screen chemistry with Huang
Xiaoming to make their on-screen relationships with him real.
I
guess, without Chinese financial backing, Insanity might not have made it to
the screens, and to sell a movie to a market of billions, it makes business sense
to include in the cast actors/actresses that appeal to the market.
However,
I also guess that not every marketable actor/actress can hold their own against
Sean Lau and Paw Hee-ching. Both Sean
Lau and Paw Hee-ching have had many many years honing their craft, and I am
pretty certain they did not start out as good as they are now. To pair either of them with an actor/actress
with far less experience may help the junior hone his/her craft, but the gap
shows on the screen. I am not saying that
Huang Xiaoming is an awful actor. He
just cannot hold his own against Sean Lau in Insanity. In addition to overly dramatic emoting, his
on-screen relationship with Fiona Sit was also unconvincing. As Insanity unfolded, 2 questions kept
repeating themselves. Would it have been
better to have an actress that Huang Xiaoming was personally familiar with
taking Fiona’s character? Could another
actor taking Huang Xiaoming’s character make the comparison with Sean Lau less
jarring? Louis Khoo’s face kept popping
up in my mind. Duh it seems like the
Overheard series 窃听风云 is too sticky in my mind...
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