Invitation Only

Tagline: Surprisingly brutal and good slasher flick… Review by Neo: Known as Taiwanese first venture into the slasher genre arena, Invitation Only does not have the looks or the hype of a good movie. Just one look on the casting list, which includes Japanese AV superstar Maria Ozawa, the movie did not oozes or echoes any signs of a good quality production. That is why it is all the more surprising for me to unfold this brutal, slashing, unforgivable, but most importantly of all, it actually manages to be an interestingly good and entertaining film. Fans of Maria Ozawa be warned; she is in the film for nothing more than a glorify cameo to strip down, have sex and sell a couple more movie tickets. In fact, this is actually a good thing, as the film just gets better and better the moment the Euro-Japanese decided to roam back to her AV industry.

The movie goes like this: Byrant Chang of Summer Tail and Eternal Summer fame plays a working class, high school drop-out who works as a driver for a rich business man. One day, Chang caught his boss having sex with a magazine model (played by Maria Ozawa, the star of numerous genre flicks), and in the process Chang is given an exclusive ticket to a higher class party event. At the party, he meets a fellow newcomer (played by Julianne Chu) and together they will realize that the party is not really what they think it will be.

The film basically works because it is able to sustain a certain amount of audience attention. Whether the reason for captivating my attention is to find out what will happen next to the beautiful Julianne Chu or how many pieces the next person will be chopped, the fact is that it got my attention. For that the film does extremely well and more surprisingly is that usually these kinds of movies (i.e. Saw series or Hostel series) possesses underlying bad acting, but here, newcomer Julianne Chu steals the show, the spotlight and perhaps opening up an opportunity for herself and a promising career ahead.

Byrant Chang who is usually a capable enough actor manages to disappoint big time. After some credible displays in the likes of Eternal Summer, here, Chang is lost and quite frankly confused. At times, he seems to be acting and at other times, he is simply overacting. In a way, his ambivalent towards Maria Ozawa works to a certain degree, but luckily, while Chang adds nothing to the movie, but in no way did he manage to ruin it either.

Moving on to the best thing in the film itself is the underrated performance of Taiwanese newcomer, Julianne Chu. Julianne showed the audience a kind of performance that would make any newcomer proud and also forward a statement to Ozawa that you do not always have to strip down and bang something to be hot. Sure, Ozawa oozes the screen with some degree of hotness and probably the main reason why the majority of audience decides to take a crack at this film. Julianne is certainly someone to watch for years to come and her convincing display made this film better than it should be. Perhaps, focusing more on Julianne rather than Byrant Chang would have elevated the film just that a tad better.

As with most readers here, they are probably interested in how Maria Ozawa fares, not bad is what I can say, but for a "used up" actress like Ozawa, there is really next to no excitement with or without her involvement in my honest opinion. In fact, her presence seems a little out of place in the film, but then again, if she can sell a few extra tickets with just 5 minutes of screen time, then why not? All in all, Invitation Only basically succeeds in all its goals and ambitions. The goal is to make a good and sustainable slasher flick, the ambition is to shock and maintain the audience attention. The fact that the film is actually brutal enough to satisfy me (I am quite demanding in genres like these), then it must be a good thing after all. Still, without ignoring the numerous plot holes, Invitation Only works well as a whole and most certainly have plenty of moments in shock, brute, fun and quite simply, mindless entertainment. With all being said, Invitation Only is really designated for particular genre fans only and if you look at the film from that perspective, the film have plenty to slash about and with my new muse on the run in Julianne Chu, the film easily passes the grade … (Neo 2009)

I rate it 6.5/10

• www.thehkneo.com

"Wade Chen" (Ray Chang) is a nice guy who gets stuck having to chauffeur a rich corporate CEO by the name of "President Yang" (Jerry Chih-wei Huang) around town even though he had other plans. While in the process of doing this he angers Yang when he accidently catches him having sex with a beautiful model by the name of "Dana" (Maria Ozawa). Not long afterward, however, he is surprised to be offered an invitation by Yang to attend an exclusive party with the understanding that he tells everyone that he is Yang's cousin. This discovery immediately makes him a center of attention by many of the people there including an attractive woman by the name of "Hitomi" (Julianne Chu) who also happens to be one of those being honored at the party as well. But what neither Wade nor Hitomi realize is that they were invited to this particular party for ulterior reasons and soon what they thought was supposed to be a festive occasion turns into a nightmare beyond anything they could ever imagine. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that viewers who enjoy action-packed slasher films will probably want to check this one out as it definitely fits that category. Personally, while I didn't mind the gory scenes, the overall plot lacked realism and I thought that the ending could have used some improvement as well. That being said, I was a bit disappointed overall and for that reason I have rated this film accordingly. Slightly below average.

The plot copies ideas from several movies I've seen such as 2008 french movie Vampire Party (Les Dents De La Nuit) - 5 people got invitation cards to a special party off an island and found out they are nothing but walking prey to a bunch of vampires. Another one is Saw, with the video recorder scenes.

For the movie itself, I'm disappointed about the script as it brings nothing new to the table. What makes a story / movie special is the local cultural elements + human nature / universal questions we all have or face during the era. For horror movies, especially Asian, what works most but neglected most are urban legends.

The surprising part of this movie is one of the actress is more famous than anyone in the film turns out to be a Japanese porn actress - Maria Ozawa could land a role more than a sex scene. It's another porn actress got into mainstream movie after Dany Verissimo successfully played a role in Distrct 13 (Banlieue 13).

Two males and three girls receive, each of them, an invitation to a party destined only for rich and successful business people. Once there, they are locked inside the building and someone start to hunt them. One die, two others, badly wounded, are captured and dragged on a stage. There, in front of other guests from the high-society, their stalkers torture them in some gruesome ways. The two (remaining) main characters try to escape this nightmarish location while the bad guys are on their steps.

If you have seen "Hostel" and liked it, you will probably enjoy this one too, at least three scenes have the exact same feeling. There's a lot of blood flowing from the both sides, the baddies and the victims. The movie start slowly and constantly accelerate until the climactic ending. I found some plot holes, the first being right at the beginning. It helps you to get in the mood, but the location has no connection with the rest of the story, at least in my opinion. Visually, I have some mixed impressions. Most of the footage seem to be caught on film, while other sequences looked more like a digital camera recording. There's a certain amount of shaky camera movement during the run/caught/fighting moments, but the rest is OK. The editing is good, allowing the viewer to see what's going on. Some moments are well defined visually, emphasizing the atmosphere (the axe in the final battle), other less (a car chase between a Ferrari 360 Modena and a pick-up truck), some have an unnatural feeling(completely deserted roads at night, a police check in a road tunnel with zero traffic).

So...Not a masterpiece, because it's nearly impossible to make a masterpiece today from this genre. But not a bad or boring movie. More, it has more twists and turns than your average slasher/horror movie, good makeup and some cool death/torture scenes. Bonus, nice Taiwanese girls and a female lead not only beautiful, but also smart. This helped me to care for her, after so many years of horror films where the young victim girls were so stupid.

Wade (Bryant Chang), a junior at a large corporation, is given an invitation to go to a swanky party for the elite by company president Mr. Yang (Jerry Huang), who is unable to attend himself; the only proviso is that Wade must masquerade as Yang's cousin. To help him blend in at the posh event, Mr. Yang provides Wade with designer clothes and plenty of cash, none of which stops Wade from bonking his boss's extremely hot model girlfriend (Maria Ozawa) at the bash after cleaning up at the roulette table (talk about a winning streak!). On top of all that, Wade is also presented with the one thing he has always dreamed of: a silver Ferrari Modena 360 (I would have gone for a classic red one myself).

Just as the evening looks like it couldn't get any better for Wade, it doesn't: it turns out that, along with four other guests who also aren't who they claim to be, he is to become an unwilling participant in the evening's entertainment, a gruesome torture show laid on for the benefit of the city's sadistic socialites.

The plot for Invitation Only, Taiwan's contribution to the sub-genre frequently termed as 'torture-porn', doesn't stray all that far from the film that it was clearly inspired by, Eli Roth's Hostel: a group of gullible people are duped into becoming victims for rich sickos. But despite being very derivative stuff, I still give Invitation Only the edge over Hostel: first off, the violence is nastier (including a particularly eye-watering jump-leads-to-the-genitals scene!!!); secondly, the women are hotter (not that Hostel's Barbara Nedeljakova is a munter, it's just that given the choice I prefer my ladies of the Asian persuasion); and last but not least, the film isn't by Roth, whose over-inflated ego really gets my back up.

6.5 out 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.