Dream Home (2010) User Reviews (47)

a high rise with a killer view

[K2nsl3r · 8/10 · 20 September 2010]

This film is a fresh, entertaining, stylish and beautifully staged gore fest. The bloody mainframe of the film's structure is accompanied by an interesting side-story that serves to justify all the bloodshed and also to provide some social commentary, but all this is secondary to the rivers of blood. And God saw it was good.

Ho-Cheung Pang's "Dream Home" proves that well-made genre pictures satisfy a basic human need: they can focus our attention, for a while, to a sequence of events that entertains because we know, roughly speaking, what to expect, what kind of experiences are in store for us. Well, Dream House is an honest splatter. Victims are lined up to be slaughtered in the most inventive ways for our viewing pleasure. But the film also has elements of human drama, and these two aspects - gore and drama - play each other in and out very well. The overall result is an impeccably paced, brutal but surprisingly uplifting story, beautifully shot against the backdrop of Hong Kong's endless arrays of high-rises and apartment blocks.

The main character, played by an air of focused innocence by Josie Ho, has been saving up to buy an apartment with a nice seaside view, and she is working very hard to realize her dreams. Then things don't go exactly as planned. Lots of drama ensues. People die. Blood is spilled.

There is nothing much more to the plot than a general arch to justify the gore, but it all works out very well, and doesn't feel dragged out or phony or needlessly second-rate; in fact, the acting in this film is actually quite good for the most part, with the exception of the actress who plays the main heroine: she is VERY good. In addition to the action, there is some merit to the drama itself. It carries some weight, or, at any rate, enough to make the film seem interesting all the while. None of the social commentary is especially realistic or intelligent, but the splatter format can function as a kind of primal scream therapy, and thus bring some aspects of our repressed social anxieties to the bloody daylight.

Finally, one aspect of the film deserves special attention: the cinematography, editing and directing. The shots are beautiful, symmetrical, rich in detail. Whether inside or outside, the camera captures some beautiful scenes (and, let us not kid ourselves here, some beautiful people). Each frame could almost work as a photograph; each outdoors vignette of Hong Kong cityscape is hauntingly beautiful; each spewing of blood is swiftly and surgically captured on the screen.

The script is tight and the acting is sufficient. The editing is inventive and the staging rich in detail. Even the drama succeeds in never becoming boring and no single scene, or theme, overstays its welcome. The director-writer Pang has given us a good splatter film which is also a good film even outside its (criminally under-appreciated and depreciated) genre. I was pleasantly surprised by the craft involved. Did I mention it's also funny? Just wait for the moment when the... oh, never mind, just go see this bloody film already.

Snap judgment: Rivers of blood make for bloody good entertainment.

Very gory satirical slasher.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 8/10 · 6 February 2011]

Cheng Lai-sheung(Josie Ho)is desperate to buy a flat in the famed Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong.He works two jobs and is already in debt.Not enough money for her dream home prompts her to spill the blood of the rich."Dream Home" is one hell of a gory slasher.The killings are extremely vicious and insanely bloody.The murderous rampage of the main character leaves nothing to imagination.The cinematography is stylish,the acting is fantastic and the score provide some chills."Dream Home" paints an ugly side of corrupted society with some of the bloodiest murders ever captured on screen.8 blood sprays out of 10.A must-see for horror fans with an iron stomach.

It is one of the best modern day slasher with amazing effects but one scene made me very upset.

[Fella_shibby · 7/10 · 6 January 2021]

I saw this for the first time recently n in my opinion the filmmakers shud have removed the pregnant woman's turmoil scene.

The story is bah Lai sheung n thru mixed chronological order, we see Lai-sheung as a child whose family and friends are evicted from their low-rent housing so that developers can build expensive flats but she vows to buy her mother and father a new apartment, specially an apartment with a view of the Victoria Harbour.

As an adult she is working in a bank, having a relationship with a married man, taking care of his ailing father n a young brother. Due to bad circumstances, Lai-sheung goes into a frenzy where she goes to the flats and attacks people who live and work there, killing them without any mercy.

This film has shades of Inside (2007). It is one of the best slasher of modern times n the effects r amazing. The film is very very violent with some very heavy stuff which made me squirm.

An Unexpectedly Brutal Tale

[tabathazee · 6/10 · 23 July 2013]

"Dream Home" has been a title I've been waiting to watch since it's release. Most reviews I had read pinned it as a "darkly hilarious" satirical horror film with high levels of style and gore. The style and gore are there alright, but as far as humor is concerned, I was a little let down. The film does have it's quirks and witty lines, not to mention a few "so-bad-it's-good" effects, but it didn't quite live up to the reputation that I had known it for. That being said, the film is shot beautifully and uses a wide variety of creative shots and transitions. It plays with the time-line well and develops Cheng's character at a very nice pace. Many of the deaths are drawn out and disturbing, which would make this a difficult film to watch if the effects were done with more care. Some over-the-top gore may be humorous to some, but in using characters that the audience can relate to, it is more easily said to be horrific. All in all, though it fell a little short of the hype I've been hearing, "Dream Home" is a must for any Chinese or Asian horror fans!

Stylish and interesting. A well done slasher flick.

[nasteen8 · 28 October 2011]

This movie caught my attention when it was reviewed by a friend of mine and I decided to give it a go and thankfully I did!!What can be said about "Dream Home" is that it's a very well done slasher movie with a fresh approach. I really loved this movie, what can I say! The basic story is a woman becomes so obsessed with buying a home with a view of the ocean she will go to any lengths to get that home....

I'm a huge fan of ultra violent horror movies and this one did not let down on that front by any means. But what really got me was the fresh ideas about a slasher/killer in this film. It wasn't the tired "crazed man follows stupid teens to a cabin" crap that gets turned out every week but a look at a seemingly normal person getting so obsessed with a dream that they will do anything and everything in their power to obtain that dream. Her performance was spot on and quite disturbing with kill scenes that made me cringe (which is very hard to do). Seriously, one of the greatest kill scenes I've seen in a movie this year! Do yourself a favor and check this out if you're into the slasher/killer genre. It won't be a waste of your time at the very least and you may just like it, maybe a lot!

Murderously entertaining

[asda-man · 7/10 · 31 December 2012]

I sort of see Dream Home as a thinking man's slasher. What I mean by that is that it's a slasher film with a point, as it contains all the outlandishly kills from famous slashers like Friday the 13th (it probably goes further actually) but all the excessive blood and violence has a point, and a very valid point about the current house market in Hong Kong. Dream Home is also supposedly based on true events, I don't know how many of the events are true but I'm guessing not that many! Still, it illustrates the point of the film further as the age old issue of money has seriously taken its toll!

Dream Home has an interesting structure which I don't know if it entirely worked. You see it cross cuts from her current murder spree to her past, including early childhood, right up to the events that led her to do it. In its favour it did add a nice layer of mystery to the film, and also helped to balance out the drama-heavy scenes with the horror-heavy scenes, allowing us to take a break from the last gruesome massacre and look forward to how it's all going to pan out! However, I can't help but wonder if the film would've been stronger having the events be shown in chronological order. It may have built the suspense and the final killing spree would've been doubly intense! It certainly worked for May, although the characters were much stronger in that than they are here. It's an interesting thought, but I'm satisfied with the unusual cross-cuts.

Now horror fans are not going to be disappointed with the horror-heavy scenes! Dream Home showcases some of the most inventive kills I've seen on screen for a long time. Some of them are also quite heavy to watch, by that I mean distressing, which makes us feel less empathy for the character, making her well rounded. However, I think there could've been more evidence of her snappy psychological state in the past as she doesn't appear violent until she suddenly snaps. It does seem a bit over the top, but I suppose we can forgive it. There's plenty of blood and not only that, some scenes were actually quite suspenseful and thrilling rather than just a simple slash and dash.

The drama-heavy scenes are also not as boring as I've labelled them. I found it really interesting to find out how she got so fixated on that apartment she wanted, and her journey getting her. They really help to flesh out the character further so we can feel for her and her motives (occasionally). However, I also think that a little background on her victims could've been nice as well, so we get to see them as humans too rather than just prey to feed off! The film is also beautifully shot and directed which I didn't expect. There's some lovely cinematography of the high-rise buildings which could also be metaphorical as it seems so out of her reach!

Dream Home is a highly successful slasher and one that I'd be happy to revisit again. It doesn't hold back and also brings up various themes which have a place in today's society. I really enjoyed its entertaining violence and strong character build-up. You do care what happens to her in the end and it also makes a refreshing change to have a slasher film from the killer's point of view. I'd definitely go and check this one out as it doesn't seem that a lot have!

This Hong Kong thriller/slasher is a definite MUST watch!

[paul_haakonsen · 7/10 · 29 July 2012]

"Dream House" was somewhat of a great surprise. I love Hong Kong cinema and watch anything I can get my hands on. Though I wasn't familiar with "Dream House" prior to finding it by sheer random luck on Amazon, and decided to get it as it sounded interesting and was at an okay price.

And to make it all the more interesting, then the movie is based on true events that shook Hong Kong, and I got that confirmed from a friend living there, so it wasn't just something that was flaunted in the movie to make it more interesting - there was some truth behind it.

The story in "Dream House" is about Cheng Lai (played by Josie Ho) who has been saving money her entire life to buy her own dream apartment, a home of her own. She is living with her family, which is normal in Hong Kong, up until you get married, usually. Things seem to sort themselves out for her, except that the sellers raise the price, and other people are interested in the one and only specific apartment she wants. Cheng Lai sanity flickers and she is driven to inhuman actions.

"Dream House" was driven by a great story that sweeps you up and takes you along for a great ride. Plus it was really well acted, and it was mostly Josie Ho who pulled the weight. I, personally, do not care much for Eason Chan (playing Siu To) and his acting skills (or lack thereof).

The movie is filmed in a great way that makes it come off as right in your face, almost as if you were right there with the actors. Plus the camera work really helped the movie along as well, especially when Cheng Lai was having a breakdown on the street. That scene was just so amazingly nice.

And as a major plus, for all gorehounds out there, then there is a rather good amount of gore and really good effects in the movie, which makes it well worth checking out for the mayhem alone. I was impressed with some of the scenes. And I will say this, without giving away anything here; the scene with the pregnant tenant and her maid was one of the most brutal and graphically disturbing scenes I have seen in a long, long time. That really got my attention, as I had never expected that kind of graphic violence in this movie.

If you enjoy Hong Kong cinema, then you definitely should treat yourself to this movie, as it is a rather unique addition to the collection of Hong Kong cinema.

I want to sleep with this woman. With one eye open, of course.

[Someguysomwhere · 6/10 · 2 November 2010]

I couldn't help but notice that there were some really nice looking women in this movie and--. What's that you say? Get to the damn review? What's this film about? Okay, okay.

A woman goes to extreme measures to get her dream home after greedy sellers back out of a deal to sell to her. No doubt she had some inspiration from her childhood when developers were forcing people out of their homes in her neighborhood by using underhanded and criminal tactics. Her tale is told alternating between her murderous present and the years and days leading up to it so that we understand her motivation and see her transformation.

What can I say?

If you're squeamish make sure you eat your lunch AFTER you see this. --But then again, you might not want to eat anything after either. The solution for you may be to avoid this altogether. On the other hand, if gore does not particularly bother you, or you are a gore hound, this is your movie.The instigator of all this horror is a woman who just flipped.

Right after the sellers turned her down, you knew by the way the camera was used to shoot her walking on the street that here was a woman who had just lost everything; she feels numb; she hardly sees, hears, or feels anything around her; her heart's desire (since she was a child) has been snatched from her when she thought it was so close.

Imagine the intensity of the anger and desperation that must eventually have taken hold of her later. First disbelief and hopelessness. Suicidal thoughts might naturally have followed (after all, her dream was dead). This woman however, decided she wasn't going down without a fight. But we saw indications earlier with her father that this woman could be ruthless; that she wasn't so innocent. Still we are not prepared for the "helter skelter" sadistic cruelty she unleashes.

Lastly, let me say that it was hard to feel sympathy for this woman because of her sadism (some of it, it seemed to me, spiteful and gratuitous) towards people who had nothing to do with thwarting her dream except maybe they were able to rent where she wanted to live. So I found I was always rooting for her victims. Sadly, in vain (the bitch is a killing machine). Nice looking woman though and some others as well. If I could manage to take that big-ass knife away from her and all her other implements of terror I think I could.... Okay, okay, I got you. Boloxxxi out. Love.

Legitimately shocking

[zetes · 8/10 · 6 October 2013]

Josie Ho plays a young woman desperate to own her own flat. She makes the perfect deal for her dream home, but then the owners decide that the property is too valuable to part with. Ho decides to take matters into her own hands and lower that property value - by killing the crap out of everyone who lives next door to that place. I've never quite seen anything like this. The structure, which moves back and forth in time, is a bit confusing at first, but it all comes together in the end. The film is most notable for its violence. These are some of the nastiest, most disturbing murders I've seen in a long time. I can't remember the last time I was actually shocked by a movie.

Yikes

[neil-476 · 7/10 · 27 July 2013]

A young Hong Kong woman has her heart set on an apartment with a sea view. As various obstacles to the purchase arise she reacts by committing a series of savage murders. As you do.

This shockingly violent slasher movie features a terrific central performance from the rather lovely Josie Ho. The satirical element which the film undoubtedly contains was rather lost on me (I'm not very up on the Hong Kong property market), but the film is very well made - quite a lot better than the majority of Western slasher flicks: it is a handsome film.

If you are a fan of violent and gory films, you are unlikely to see many which are better than this one.

Dreary exercise in sadism

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 14 July 2014]

DREAM HOME is a modern-day homage to the nasty Category III boom of the 1990s which saw Hong Kong film producers making such tasteless products as THE EBOLA SYNDROME, RUN AND KILL and BUNMAN. Sadly, it lacks the finesse and indeed interest of those films, which would have been passable without all the nastiness; instead this is a film entirely built around bloodshed.

This movie has an odd, convoluted-feeling narrative; half of the story is told in flashback, and the rest is basically one extended gore sequence. About the only thing I can recommend is the quality of the gore effects, which are exemplary and ultra-realistic, but that's all there is to it: there are no heroes or villains here, nobody to root for, just murder after murder. Before long it gets very wearying and nihilistic, worse than a cheap '80s slasher.

The set-up story, told through flashback, I found very lightweight and Josie Ho's stilted acting and monotonous delivery of her lines didn't help much. It seems to be building up to some big twist but you end up thinking "so what?". It's five minutes of screen time stretched out to an hour. Yes, there's some good subtext involving the struggle for people to get on the property market, but in the end this is a simplistic, dreary exercise in sadism and one that left me frankly bored.

A view to (a) kill (aka Do not try this at your future home)

[kosmasp · 9/10 · 7 November 2010]

Wouldn't it be nice to have a really good apartment? An apartment you always dreamed of? Of course not many of us could really afford our dream home, now could we? So what could we do about it? Other than work night and day (and the other way around) to really get enough money for it? Is there anything we can do?

According to the movie there is. But then again, you might not want to try that at (your future?) home. You could call this a social parody I guess and it is very well done. A very wicked sense of humor, great effects and an intercourse that is even more outrageous than the one that can be witnessed in "Hatchet 2" (though I'm pretty sure neither of the filmmakers were aware of that "similarity", maybe still aren't). If you like horror that also has something to say, but can also just be watched as entertainment, this is for you!

A very bloody drama

[sitenoise · 6/10 · 24 February 2011]

Gore-hounds and violence enthusiasts should enjoy this one a lot, except that all the horror plot points are interrupted by a lot of story and social commentary about rising home prices in Hong Kong. Dream Home is a serious and thoughtful drama with a lot of blood.

The flashback narrative technique doesn't serve the film very well except for the fact that it lets the blood start flowing from the opening scene. It feels like a cop out to me when a director doesn't have the confidence to let a film build to its climax, and feels the need to begin with the climax and then retrace the steps that lead up to it.

A few of the kills in this film are fantastic, in a "Really?!?! Holy Sh*t!" sort of way, especially the coitus interruptus one. The fact that mild-mannered Josie Ho is performing them adds to the effect. The only problem I had is that many of them start off as failures, to build phony tension the wrong way, become successes, and then someone who should have been dead dead dead pops up for another go at it. This produces more bang for the buck by getting, say, a dozen kills out of only seven characters.

There's plenty of nudity and some graphic sex to round things out but the cognitive dissonance created by mixing deep dramatic story lines with over-the-top bloodletting is likely to leave most viewers sitting on the fence verdict-wise. I recommend the film more to gore hounds than to connoisseurs of fine Hong Kong cinema. The film looks great and the production values are top notch, so ....

Some People Kill For What They Want

[gwnightscream · 5/10 · 22 July 2020]

This 2010 horror-thriller tells of a woman who wants to buy a pricy flat she always wanted, but goes to extreme lengths to get it. This is definitely a violent, gruesome foreign flick that's not too bad. The main actress does a decent job, the score is good and the make-up effects are realistic. You could give this a view if you're into slasher flicks, but once is enough in my opinion.

Category III

[chaos-rampant · 22 January 2012]

This is pretty awesome for what it is. Remember CATIII films from some twenty years ago? The most gruesome violence, a seamy social underbelly, usually a plot involving revenge and some terrible crime spree; bleak, nihilistic, amoral affairs of a world abandoned to the most deviant whims and sexual appetites. On at least the matter of violence, this one is a slick return to splatterfests of yore. There is no body part that isn't horribly mangled in some way. The pregnant woman isn't spared. Police don't save the day when they show up. There is no safe moral center to pivot around.

This part works, is senselessly brutal and exciting. But every now and then we veer off into extensive childhood flashbacks meant to contextualize and explain. Backstory is gradually pieced together from that direction that allows us to discern pattern in yawning madness, minutely calculated obsession. Every wild stabbing of the knife is gradually imbued with purpose.

The idea on the part of the filmmakers was probably that this was drama and human interest that would trouble how we handled violence from our end. The shift in tone would unsettle: here is a perfectly innocent young girl, and on the other end a raging psychopath.

This would grace the whole with some complexity, even respectability. The film would not be easy to dismiss but would recast aimless slaughter as greater social consequence. We learn for example that government and land proprietor thugs are ousting poor tenants from their shabby apartment blocks, in order to flatten them and build luxurious high-rise towers in their place. Prices artificially skyrocket. This is brought full circle in the end with the first news as of '08 of the coming global economic crisis. The problem is this is not handled in terribly interesting ways. It's shoe-horned at the end of a bloodbath for some weight but only drags the superficial pleasures down.

So we just learn stuff someone presumed we would need to know. The whole is tied into something someone presumed would be relevant to us all. It is but I'd rather get this part from a newspaper. A newspaper doesn't have excellent gore. So every minute spent away from cartoonish carnage and into hamfisted drama and social commentary is a minute lost for me.

Being from Hong Kong, the makers perhaps felt it was their part to address all this. Perhaps the ire is honest and comes from experience. But as far as a horror film goes, I'm surprised they allowed the lesson of A L'Interieur go wasted: brutality even more sharpened by complete awareness of the present moment.

Still, it's pretty awesome for what it is. It just means we'll have to concentrate on what was clearly poured into the most effort; the slick, ultraviolent slasher film.

Excellent Female-Driven Cat. III

[trentreid-1 · 7/10 · 3 November 2010]

Crafted, period specific and localized horror with nicely stylistic elements of homage to Psycho and fairly strong cat. III edge and humor. After some semi-derivative vertical montage shots to make the visual metaphors explicit, we go into an initial kill with some similar shots driving the point home. Time is then spent developing Josie Ho's character well enough for her to convince pretty well in the more strenuous, later knock down drag outs. There's a shot referring to Love in a Puff here, just one of many little in-jokes throughout for the fans.

Her background and psychological setup for present circumstances are explored effectively in some sequences that jump around a bit. Tsui is great here, and it feels much better than one monolithic block of back-story or a single expository character might. Eason Chan is also quite good as her jackass cad of a boyfriend, not playing his cretinism up too hard but also not going for fan sympathy in any way.

The Michelle Ye kill has some slightly unfortunate prosthetics and CGI, but they are not dwelt upon and are perfectly acceptable for the budget and time involved. Had it been featured or repeated, this might have detracted from the overall use of practical fx and realistic fight choreography, but that is largely not the case.

The drug den fight brings back this strong violence, but with a lot of humorous sexuality reminiscent of AV and weaponized paraphenalia. This goes quite OTT, with jokes for 24Herbs enthusiasts and some creative violence that fans of Her Vengeance might enjoy.

In all, this is ambitious and smart in ways that I would certainly like to see more of. It harks back to cat. III classics while referencing the director's previous work and some of the less often considered aspects of Psycho. The humor is largely integrated with the horror rather than as dismissive punchlines, and it utilizes the urban environment excellently. By not pandering to international audiences, I would hope for a change this film might garner more notice and perhaps be seen firsthand rather than as an English language remake.

A bloody film that reminds me of the SAW series

[fishbelly2002 · 6/10 · 15 December 2010]

It takes a little background knowledge to understand how crazy it is for HK real estate market and the sufferers resulting from it. Such knowledge may be lacking for foreign viewers and therefore finding minimal resonance on this film.

With the film surrounding blood, sex, and violence, it reminds me of the SAW series, which use the 3 elements above to bring out the films theme.

It is not a bad film entertainment wise, however I find it is trying too hard to create the graphic scenes, which in some cases exceeds WAY too much out of reality. (e.g the eye popping scene, the guts falling scene)

One thing that worths mentioning is the beautiful cinematography in this film, which creates a lot of texture for the film.

Another thumbs up for the film has is its original score, it is hard to believe, after reading the credits at the end, that almost all of the songs are originally written, BY ONE MUSICIAN Gabriele Roberto.

I'm also glad that the ending does not end like all the other cheesy films.

Good

[manitobaman81 · 7/10 · 30 August 2014]

The urge to just walk away almost got me a couple of times. But, in the end, this is an excellent character study. Cheng Li-sheung is a young, upwardly mobile professional finally ready to invest in her first home. But when the deal falls through, she is forced to keep her dream alive - even if it means keeping her would-be neighbors dead. Are there annoying things in this movie? Yes, like the overdone acting. But the movie has enough to keep you entertained. If you end up watching this, you will probably be like me in saying that it starts off great then gradually begins to suck. For these reasons I award this film 7 out of 10.

My advice? Don't stand between this woman and her dream.

[lewiskendell · 7/10 · 29 September 2011]

Dream Home is one of the most vicious, gory, and violent (occasionally to the point of hilarity) slasher flicks that I've seen in quite a while. A Hong Kong woman has wanted to own a high-rise apartment for most of her life, and she's not going to let anyone stop her from achieving that dream.

Not only is Dream Home wince-inducingly entertaining, it also has a story that actually makes sense. Always a good thing (and often a bonus), in this kind of movie. The film jumps between the childhood of the main character, more recent events in her life, and the murderous rampage happening in the present, and it all ties together quite nicely. I highly recommend this to slasher fans looking for something beside the usual set-ups and characters and those looking for a foreign movie with a little more bite, but those with a tender disposition or no stomach for on-screen violence need not apply.

Refreshingly great horror/comedy with a relevant social commentary

[LoneWolfAndCub · 8/10 · 6 March 2011]

When going in to seeing this film, I knew the general outline of the plot and much talked about death scenes, what I did not expect was a genuinely well-made, acted, written and shot horror movie with a great blend of comedy and social context. Dream Home is one amongst a recent slew of fantastic Asian horror films, and shows that it is the foreign horror filmmakers who are making the top quality movies.

Ho-Cheung Pang (who directed and wrote) has made a simple story very entertaining. Cheng Lai-sheung (an incredibly beautiful Josie Ho) works two part time jobs in order to save her money to buy an apartment with an ocean view. This dream goes back to her childhood where various events and friendships lead her to this apartment. Unfortunately, with market prices the way they are she can't really afford the price being asked, and her obsession turns into a madness which only blood can satisfy.

Dream Home is not told in a chronological manner, rather, the story is told in bits and pieces, slowly revealing how Cheng became the murderer we are seeing. I found this to be a fantastic way to tell the story, as it doesn't follow that standard path of showing a descent into madness, instead, it gives us snippets in between the carnage in order to hold our attention, so we don't get bored with all the killing, but we also don't get bogged down with explanations. Speaking of the killings, this movie contains some extreme violence which most fans of this genre will love, I know I sure did. The majority of these are over-the-top and comic in the way they unfold (apart from the most talked about scene involving the suffocation of a pregnant woman), most of the scenes go for a few minutes, in which we see Cheng is not that adept at killing, and she will only get the upper hand out of luck. No body part is safe as we see eyes gouged out, heads blown off and major amounts of arterial spray. These scenes are also where the movies major drawback lays: the use of CGI. Although it wasn't terrible, it was obvious and did detract a little in some scenes, but that's just me being finicky.

Dream Home is not just about the death scenes, the film is technically well-made in all aspects. The directing, editing and cinematography give the film a beautiful look, with many gorgeous shots throughout the film. The scenes in the apartments where the all the murders take place are filmed in a variety of ways and angles, giving these scenes an intense, claustrophobic and sometimes surreal feel. The acting is fantastic from everyone, especially Josie Ho, who turns her psychopath into someone that at times you can sympathise with.

This movie, while being a great horror film, is also a very relevant commentary on the future home owners issue. With the price of housing increasing steadily (especially where I live) this story can feel a little close to home. Not that I, or any normal person, would go to this length to get a home, but it still brings up an important issue.

4/5

social criticism in a bloods & gore flick - and it works !

[Radu_A · 7/10 · 20 August 2011]

'Dream Home' is a first in many ways. Not only would the uncut version appear to be the most violent Hongkong film ever - I mean I haven't seen all of them, of course, but I've seen 'The Story of Rikky Oh', which by all accounts has been the goriest Hongkong flick ever - so far. Contrary to that prison trash fest, however, 'Dream Home' picks up the real problem of the inflated Hongkong real estate market and turns it into violence as the penultimate solution to that problem. And strangely it works that way. If you don't read any of the spoilers (highly recommended), you may feel positively puzzled as the connection between the two plot threads dawns upon you.

To be sure: this film isn't going to be everybody's cup of tea. It's much too realistic for anyone looking for cheap thrills à la 'Wrong Turn'. And it's much too violent for those looking for a 'different' Hongkong film in these dire times for that industry. But if you're very open-minded and not faint of heart, you can brace yourself for a ride you're not likely to forget any time soon.

Social commentary? Satire? Bullshit

[david_hokey_16 · 1/10 · 14 October 2012]

This movie is incredibly distasteful. When someone is portrayed as a murderer we should feel absolutely no sympathy for them unless they kill in self-defense or perhaps even as vengeance for someone who did something equally or even more awful to them. But a woman who kills people just so she can live in her dream home? Sorry, but I'm not buying it. She kills a pregnant woman. She knocks her down, ties her up, and slowly suffocates her with a vacuum cleaner. I cannot feel any remorse for this girl when anything in her life goes wrong. In fact, throughout the whole movie I'm rooting for someone to torture and mutilate HER. Movies like "May" starring Angela Bettis portray the kind of character you show sympathy for. In that movie, she is a nice girl with a lazy eye who never had any friends and everyone takes advantage of her, mocks her, and she eventually lashes out and accidentally kills someone. She then takes revenge on a few other people who treated her poorly, and one person who did her no harm, and though we don't root for her or take her side on the killings, we can certainly feel sympathy for her. The girl in "Dream Home" deserves none. If this movie was trying to portray a message it was lost in the senseless killing. Murder can be a symbol in movies but in this it's just murder and not even in the original, understandable sense of the horror genre. It's just truly awful.

Brutal, satirical and very entertaining.

[BA_Harrison · 8/10 · 4 November 2015]

On one hand, Dream Home is a poignant drama about a young Hong Kong woman's life of hardship and her dream of living in an apartment overlooking the bay; on the other, it's a gore-drenched tale of obsession and madness, the lady in question going to extreme and very bloody lengths in order to achieve her goal. As a whole, the film works brilliantly as a shocking slice of social satire on the difficulty of getting on the property ladder (although it's not as far fetched as it might seem: the film is apparently based on true events!).

Josie Ho plays Cheng Lai-Sheung, who, ever since she was a child living in a run-down high-rise, has longed to move with her family to No.1 Victoria Bay, an apartment block affording views of the sea. As the years pass, Josie saves every penny of her meagre wages, but loses both of her parents, yet still hangs on to her dream. So when the opportunity arises, she does whatever it takes to secure her dream home at an affordable price—by killing off the other inhabitants to drive down the property values.

The emotional drama is sensitively handled by director Ho-Cheung Pang, with touching flashbacks to a childhood friendship, Cheng's relationship with her ailing father, her unfulfilling job, and intimate moments shared with a married man, but for me, Dream Home is all about the gritty violence, which, along with the true-story connection, lends the film an atmosphere not unlike that of a classic Cat III movie. Pang certainly doesn't hold back when it comes to graphic unpleasantness, Cheng's victims suffering a variety of very grisly fates…

Victim number one, a security guard, is forced to slash his own jugular while trying to remove a plastic tie-wrap from around his throat; a pregnant woman is suffocated with a vacuum bag and her maid gets a screwdriver through her head (which emerges out of her eye!); the pregnant woman's husband breaks his neck in a brutal struggle with Cheng. The most outrageous scene of all takes place in an apartment occupied by some drugged up youths and a pair of whores: Cheng guts one guy, sticks a broken bottle into another's neck, bashes a hooker's face on a toilet bowl, repeatedly stabs a bloke and emasculates him while he is going at it with the other prostitute, and jams a broken piece of wood into the woman's mouth. When a pair of cops arrive to investigate the disturbance, Cheng gets the upper hand and shoots them both in the head!

Not since the Cat III heyday of Anthony Wong have I seen such relentlessly nasty slaughter in a HK movie.

How to get your very own dream home - murderously cheap!

[punishmentpark · 7/10 · 20 December 2013]

A second viewing of this slasher / drama. The combination of the two elements aforementioned still don't work perfectly to my taste, but I enjoyed it more than the first time. It helped that the storyline, with all its shifting back and forth in time, became clearer to me this time, and thusly had a greater impact.

Josie Ho is a fine actress and knows how to underplay a definite psycho. The background of her character is worked out well, based on true facts of the practice of rich people forcing out home owners in Hong Kong in the '80s. The moment when she lets her grandfather die, partly because he betrayed her trust, is a pivotal moment to somehow stay on her side as a viewer - although it should not be missed that there is a lot of awfully dark humour in here, as well. And that humour makes it so that the gore (very well worked out, but not easy to stomach - pun intended?) has its rightful place here, too. Altogether, this is a weird one, and it will certainly not be for everyone. It may never be a favorite of mine, either, but the ingredients are separately very effective in any case.

From 6 to 7 out of 10.

Housing crisis

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 3 May 2021]

We just bought a new house and let me tell you, if Becca had gone through what Cheng Lai-sheung goes through in this movie, she would have killed numerous folks too.

She has promised her parents - who were forced to move from their homes to make way for luxury real estate when she was a child - that she would get them a home some day. She's already missed the opportunity to give her mother this gift, as she has died, but as her father is on his death bed, she has the goal of purchasing the Victoria Bay No. 1 high-rise.

The bank will only give her 70% of the money she needs and her father's medical bills cost so much that she must take a second job, as those costs cut into her savings. Even her married lover refuses to help, so Lai-sheng allows her father to die one night so that the dream can come true.

Despite finally qualifying for the home, the owners raise the price again, at which point our heroine kills eleven people in a frenzy before cooly returning to work and demanding that the price be cut, as after all, who would want to live in a place where so many have died?

Josie Ho, who is Lai-sheung in this, decided that she wanted to make something as wild as Riki-Oh: The Story of Riki while director and writer Pang Ho-cheung wanted something a bit more in the realm of reality. The outcome? Someone fainted and two people threw up during its Italian premiere, which is pretty much a standing ovation in my mind.