On the surface, 1993's Finale in Blood would appear to be pretty much your standard Hong Kong ghost movie. However, in one of his first efforts as a director, arthouse favorite Fruit Chan plays with the genre a bit, adding in a bit of flavor that was seemingly influenced by the filmography of the Coen Brothers. This doesn't totally elevate Finale in Blood from the realm of the average, but it at least creates some interest and sets the film apart from the crowded pack of ghost-themed productions, which as one of the more popular permutations of Hong Kong cinema has seen dozens (if not hundreds) entries delivered to audiences over the years.

In the movie, Lawrence Cheng plays Ming, a sad sack and wannabe radio host who is regulated to reading crop reports and moonlighting by delivering bootleg pharmaceuticals to nefarious characters to make ends meet. One night while making a clandestine delivery of his latest batch of goods, the cops execute a raid, so Cheng hides under an umbrella, which he takes home with him.

It turns out the umbrella is possessed by the spirit of Fong (Tiu Gwan-Mei), who wants Cheng to help her reincarnate so that she can get revenge on her adulterous husband, a crooked cop named Kuang (David Wu). Cheng is reluctant at first, but after Fong recites her story on air, which gains him a prime-time spot and the attention of his crush, Lei Sha (Josephine Koo), he agrees to assist Fong in her quest for redemption.

Finale in Blood is a slow burn of a film that feels like it doesn't know where to go for its' first half. The movie seems to over-stretch itself, trying to be everything to everybody, with drama, suspense, action, comedy, and even a little T&A (via Aoyama Chikako, who plays Kuang's mistress and sporting two "points" that give even the legendary Amy Yip a run for her money) thrown into the mix.

Of course, rapid genre changes are something to be expected for veteran viewers of Hong Kong movies, especially when you are dealing with the output of this period, where film-makers were practically falling over themselves to attract any and all eyeballs to watch their products in the face of region-wide dwindling returns at the box office. But Fruit Chan's handling of the switches in tone are handled clumsily at best -- going so far as to employ methods like using "goofy" sound effects during the comedic bits -- which tries the audience's patience and threatens to totally de-rail the film as a whole.

However, much to the benefit of the viewer, matters do get back on track during the latter half of the movie, as Chan (at least for the most part) keeps the more slapsticky elements in check, resulting in a more focused brand of film-making that leads to well, a finale in blood, where -- true to Hong Kong movie lineage and tropes -- most of the principal characters meet an unpleasant end. The last twenty minutes or so is satisfying cinema, at once redeeming the picture as a whole and also showing a glimpse of the true talents of Fruit Chan, who would come to be regarded as one of Hong Kong's better directors in subsequent years.

RATING: 6