Rigor Mortis

The entire film takes place in Chin Siu-ho's dying mind. After hanging himself in his apartment, his brain created an elaborate hallucination as rigor mortis set in. The characters he believed were allies or enemies, Yau the vampire hunter, Gau the black magician, Yang and her son, are actually just people he passed in the building hallway. At the morgue, Chin's adult son identifies his body, and the medical examiner is revealed to be Dr. Gau, confirming theCharacters he encountered were distortions of real people he saw before dying.

Early scenes show Chin walking past various residents in the building hallway, establishing people he would later hallucinate into different roles.

Meiyi grew desperate after days passed and Tung showed no signs of reviving. When Gau mentioned that virgin blood might speed the resurrection, she made the fatal decision to remove the mask, despite Gau's explicit warning never to take it off. This act unleashed Tung as a violent jiangshi, leading directly to Pak's murder.

Gau specifically warned Meiyi to keep the mask on and never remove it, making her choice a direct violation of the only rule given.

Gau was terminally ill with only months to live. When Uncle Tung fell down the stairwell but survived the initial fall, Gau seized the opportunity, he threw Tung over the rail to kill him, then performed resurrection rituals hoping to bind the twin ghosts' souls into Tung's soulless body. This would give Gau supernatural power and extend his life.

Gau's willingness to perform forbidden black magic rituals for Meiyi foreshadows his moral corruption and desperation.

The twin girls were once residents in apartment 3C. Yang Feng's husband raped one twin, and in retaliation, the other twin stabbed him to death. The surviving twin then hanged herself, creating vengeful spirits bound to the building. Yang fled the apartment in guilt and fear, but the twins remained, seeking vengeance that would ultimately consume anyone who entered their space.

Uncle Yin reveals early on that Yang and Pak previously lived in unit 3C, the same apartment the twins haunt, establishing their tragic connection.

After Chin attempted suicide by hanging, his body became vulnerable to spiritual possession. The twin ghosts, already dwelling in the building, were drawn to his despair and used his near-death state to seize control of his body. Yau explains that suicide victims are particularly susceptible to being taken over by vengeful spirits seeking a living vessel.

Chin's act of hanging himself in the room directly coincides with the twins first appearing and eventually possessing him.

A jiangshi is a Chinese hopping vampire, a reanimated corpse that feeds on the living. In the film, Tung becomes one after Gau's resurrection ritual and Meiyi's removal of the protective mask. Jiangshi are weakened by sunlight, repelled by glutinous rice, and can be bound by specialized vampire-hunting traps. They possess superhuman strength but are mindless killers driven by hunger.

Yau's restaurant serves glutinous rice, a traditional jiangshi repellent, and his walls display vampire-hunting artifacts, establishing the mythology early.

Pak was locked in the bathroom with Tung's reanimated corpse by Meiyi. When Tung revived, he brutally murdered the child. Yang then searched for Pak, inadvertently opened the cabinet freeing the twins, discovered Pak was now a ghost, and was killed while trying to fight the jiangshi. Their deaths add to the film's tragic chain of无辜 victims.

Meiyi's moment of indecision before locking Pak in the bathroom hints at the horror to come.

Yau is a jiangshi hunter from a family of vampire slayers who abandoned that life to cook glutinous rice. Though initially reluctant to get involved, his moral compass compelled him to intervene when innocent lives, especially a child, were at stake. His vampire-hunting artifacts reacting to Tung's revival forced him into action, and he ultimately helped Chin set a trap and battle the jiangshi.

Yau's explanation of his hunter background and his display of weapons establish both his capability and his reluctance to act.

At the morgue, Chin's adult son identifies his father's body, confirming Chin died by suicide that night. The medical examiner is Dr. Gau, the same name as the black magician Chin hallucinated. This reveals that Gau in the story was actually Dr. Gau, the coroner whom Chin may have seen or heard about, transformed by his dying brain into a sinister sorcerer.

The real Dr. Gau is mentioned in passing during Chin's walk through the building hallway before his suicide attempt.

Though gravely wounded when the twins impaled him with a pole, Chin was found by Yau who used a spell to stop the bleeding. However, the final twist reveals this too was part of his dying hallucination. In reality, Chin died by suicide that same night, the entire confrontation, including his survival and rescue, never occurred.

Yau warned Chin he would die from his injuries, a premonition that proves tragically true in the film's reality.