Deathnet.com (2000)

A routine day of police work sets civic-minded cop Ted (Simon Yam) into the thick of a suicide phenomenon gripping Internet-mad Hong Kong. While out on surveillance he spots a young lady ready to top herself on a roof. Ted runs up to pull her back from the edge but it's no use -- she dowses herself in petrol, flicks her lighter and burns up in front of him.

Later, the hubby doesn't buy that his wife killed herself. She had too much to live for, he says as he pleads for a police investigation. Ted's put on the case. A couple more suspicious suicides happen and Ted's partner GiGi muses over the possible influences. Online chat services are all the rage, she suggests. So it must be something on the Internet.

Sure enough, when Ted and GiGi check the next suicide victim's computer, up comes a link to one spooky little website -- the Webpage of the Death. It's the online lair of the self-proclaimed God of Death, a mysterious character who urges Hongkongers to kill themselves. The cops have found their suspect. Now they just need to find out who this is.

Once viewers work out the God of Death's identity for themselves, they're left counting down the minutes to the end of the film, when the cops eventually get the picture. For a thriller, this total lack of suspense makes Deathnet.com quite pointless. An added challenge to viewer satisfaction comes in Deathnet.com's continued talk about death and despair -- a downer many cinemagoers don't need in their day.

Deathnet.com's direction looks routine but the film is at least crisp and clean. One suicide scene is particularly well staged, even inducing mild vertigo for this viewer plonked down too close to the theatre's screen. An interesting aspect sees the filmmakers mention social impacts of the Internet, technology and online chatting programs in Hong Kong -- a recurring theme that crops up every now and then. Students spending less time speaking to parents, people turning to the 'net to score dates and video cameras installed at home (to catch maids slacking off) are depicted in passing.

Seeing Simon Yam in the lead may be enough to prod most viewers into seeing this film. But his role here is quite weak (and poorly dubbed too), hampered all the more by his character being so ineffectual in cracking the case. And an element seeing him seek psychiatric help after the first suicide goes nowhere at all. Of the others actors, Angela Tong is barely there. Law Lan is a surprising addition to the cast but her screen role less so. With Law once again playing a senile old lady, it appears the filmmakers grabbed cues from Wilson Yip's Bullets Over Summer for quick n' easy emotional impact.

The exciting Deathnet.com hand-painted billboard at the Imperial Cinema.

Credits:

Directed by Andy Ng
Starring Simon Yam Tat-wah, Lam Ka-tung, Lilian Chin, Helena Law Lan and Gabriel Harrison