A former assistant-director to Kim Ki-duk, director Jang Cheol-soo makes his Chinese-speaking debut with Murder at Honeymoon Hotel, about a luxury hotel that is the site of a series of variably grisly incidents. There’s a movie star (Zhang Jingchu), here to pay off a mysterious blackmailer who threatens to reveal a secret from her past, there’s a smarmy plastic surgeon (Peter Ho, who’s been on a overacting spree recently) in heavy debt to loan sharks, there’s a beautiful woman (Ni Hongjie) planning revenge on a client of the hotel, and in the middle is stuck a penniless bellboy (Kim Young-min) who’s getting married and hopes his boss will let him use the presidential suite for his honeymoon. Black comedies can seldom afford to be clumsy: this is a genre that requires real confidence and assured legerdemain. Murder at Honeymoon Hotel possesses the former but not the latter, marred as it is by sitcom-worthy acting and a surfeit of plot holes and unconvincing narrative turns. Still, this entertaining little film does have a a few deliciously twisted moments, and benefits greatly from the starry presence of Zhang Jingchu, whose unhinged, blazingly sexy femme fatale act enlivens the proceedings considerably. **1/2
