Dead & Beautiful (2021)

Directed by: David Verbeek | 98 minutes | drama, thriller | Actors: Gijs Blom, Philip Juan, Anna Marchenko, Yen Tsao, Aviis Zhong

Making a vampire film in China is not something you just do. David Verbeek experienced this firsthand. In 2011, the Dutch filmmaker already had the idea of ​​making a film about bloodsucking young people who make the streets of the metropolis of Shanghai unsafe. More commercial than his previous work, and primarily intended for the Chinese market. Verbeek got off to a brisk start, because soon an ambitious Chinese horror distributor put a suitcase of money on the table and the Netherlands Film Fund also got involved in the project. It went awry because the lender wanted to cast major Chinese reality TV and internet stars who were asking way too much money and barely available. Jackie Chan’s son was also briefly in the picture for a role, but that also fell through. Verbeek also ran into another problem: censorship. Ghosts, vampires, and zombies are basically forbidden in Chinese movies, unless the filmmaker twists it to be a dream or fantasy. For Western filmmakers, this is usually a sign of weakness, but Verbeek managed to give it such an inventive twist that it worked out favorably for his script. But there was still no real filming. Many adjustments to the screenplay and deadlines passed later, Verbeek was about to shoot his film in Dubai (just as grubby and soulless). Other problems arose here (with a view to sex, drugs and alcohol, for example), so Verbeek first focused on other projects. When producer Vincent Wang gave him the idea in 2018 to film in free Taiwan instead of China, everything finally fell into place and ‘Dead & Beautiful’ (2021) could finally be made.

Expensive cars, closets of houses, champagne-filled bathtubs and money like water. The spoiled rich lads in ‘Dead & Beautiful’ have everything their heart desires. But do they feel happy? Do they have fun in their lives? It doesn’t seem like it. The wealthy Mason (Gijs Blom), Lulu (Aviis Zhong), Alex (Ten Tsao), Bin-Ray (Philip Yuan) and Anastasia (Anna Marchenko) have such an empty existence that they try to fight their boredom by to fool the most bizarre ‘pranks’. For example, when we meet them, they are just attending Bin-Ray’s fake funeral. The joke is to go one step further to mislead the others or to indulge in increasingly extreme mind-altering drugs. The boundaries of their morality are blurring. When one of them arranges a meeting with a mysterious shaman and the five undergo a bloody ritual, they fall into a kind of trance-like sleep. When they awaken from it, they are found to have developed pointy canines. Have they become vampires? Are they now supposed to drink blood? Initially it is especially exciting and uncomfortable for the young people, but it does not take long before they start to turn against each other. Anxiety and paranoia set in when not everyone in the group takes their newfound identity as a vampire as seriously.

David Verbeek likes to film detached or stuck youth in dynamic, ultramodern metropolises, as we saw in his debut films ‘Shanghai Trance’ (2008) and ‘RU There’ (2010). No wonder he likes to stay in Asian metropolises such as Shanghai, Beijing and Taipei. Although Taipei is a lot less rich and exuberant than the world cities on the Chinese mainland. All the more clever that, together with cameraman Jasper Wolf, he manages to create that impression of excess and hedonism. Visually, the film is therefore to pass through a ring. Stylish and chic, just like the characters. In the evening and at night they are in their element, during the day they prefer to hide in their pompous villas and luxurious apartments; the daylight exposes their ugly sides and the emptiness of their existence. Unfortunately, we don’t get to know who they really are, what their background is. Only with Lulu we can dive into her past, to see what trauma she carries with her. Verbeek uses the idea that vampirism is a metaphor for nobility and their mysterious trade and conduct and translates it into the twenty-first century. Is the nouveau riche of today comparable to the nobility of the past? Are they the leeches of the twenty-first century? In communist China, in any case, the term ‘leech’ symbolizes people who live in an ‘unfair way’ towards others.

As interesting as that comparison is, it unfortunately doesn’t make the characters in ‘Dead & Beautiful’ any more likable. We all have our preconceptions about them, of course, because of the way they live and their overconfidence. At the beginning of the film, you hope that by getting to know them, you will eventually understand them. But with little background given and the characters barely doing anything to win our sympathy (rather the opposite), that hope is in vain. The international cast, including ‘our’ Gijs Blom, is helpful, but nowhere really distinguishes itself. The film is easy to watch and quite entertaining, but lacks a heart and a soul. Verbeek’s seventh film thus remains stuck in an interesting concept, a turbulent history and an end result that scores better on style than on content.