Plot
May moves into a new apartment complex in Hong Kong with her husband Ray and her son Chi Lo. During the move in, Chi Lo is separated from May and both see what is believed to be a hideously-deformed being through a vent cover climbing pipes and below an elevator. Back in their apartment, both try to explain to Ray what they had seen and he suggests moving out if they feel uncomfortable living there. May, however, decides that they should remain, as she still finds the place rather cozy and they had already spent a lot of money for it.
One day while Ray is away at work, May takes Chi Lo to a neighbor's birthday party for fun. During this time, Chi-Lo is kidnapped by the same hideous being seen earlier, revealed to be an insane woman who mistakes the boy as her own son. After informing the police about what had happened, May and Ray begin searching the complex believing he is trapped somewhere within. In the parking garage, Ray is stabbed by the deformed woman with a makeshift knife, critically wounding him and later rushed to the hospital (his fate is unknown afterwards).
With her neighbors refusing to help her, May is forced to continue the search alone. Her first attempt involved searching through the complex's air ducts and is nearly caught by the deformed woman, but falls through a vent cover leading to the outside of the complex, knocking her out. A second attempt involves the help of a dog who has picked up Chi Lo's scent at the complex's rooftop. The dog quickly reaches the roof and is killed by the deformed woman for scaring Chi Lo, but not before biting off one her fingers. By the time May arrives, she only sees the dog's corpse and the severed finger, which she later takes.
May then brings the severed finger to the detective working on the case regarding her son's disappearance. Through fingerprint testing, they were able to identify the deformed woman as Yan Hong, who had lived with her husband Chen Jiangchen and her son Yungwen (who bears a striking resemblance to Chi Lo) in a squatter area 4 years ago in where the apartment complex stands now. There, they had lived peacefully along with the rest of Hong Kong's poorest residents until the government tried to reclaim the area. A riot then occurs and Jiangchen is killed in an explosion, much to Yan's horror. Though the area was eventually cleared out, Yan returns there with Yung-wen to try to continue their lives. After Yungwen is killed by falling debris while looking for food, Yan leaves the area not knowing her son is dead, and would return sometime after the apartment complex is completed, slowly becoming insane over what had occurred.
May decides to lure out Yan by printing numerous copies of the latter's picture and throw them in the complex's air ducts. Yan sees them and, believing that Chi-Lo is not her son, attacks May in her apartment into demanding Yungwen's return. Chi Lo then arrives and recognizes Yan as his mother instead, forcing her to take him out of the apartment while fighting off May. Back in the complex's utility systems, Yan sees a vision of her dead husband, begging her to let go of their "home" that no longer exists. She then smashes an electrical grid after seeing her deformed self's reflection in it's glass door, causing a blackout throughout the entire complex.
Once May sees a cloth that belongs to Chi Lo floating down from the sky, she quickly realizes they are on the rooftops once again. After fighting through the police who were sent to investigate the blackout, she comes across them who are preparing to jump off. May quickly stops them and attacks Yan for kidnapping Chi Lo. She then stops after seeing him cry and goes to confront him. This leaves Yan to jump off the complex to her death, apparently wanting to reunite with her family in the afterlife.
The movie then ends with Chi Lo asking "Mom, would you abandon me?" and both May and Yan answering "Of course not, even if you abandon me".
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Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“The westward march has stopped, upon the final plains of the Pacific; and now the plot thickens ... with the change, the pause, the settlement, our people draw into closer groups, stand face to face, to know each other and be known.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)