Deception of the Novelist is a very intriguing psychological thriller that gets to the point in ninety minutes and convinces with a twisted story rather than overemphasized atmosphere.
The plot revolves around Tsui, a renowned healing author who describes how to maintain healthy romantic relationships and who also works as a realtor in downtown Hongkong. Behind his outstanding reputation hide a few demons. Tsui has cheated on his wife once at a party and was humiliated by her in front of several friends and colleagues. Ever since, his wife has been keeping her eyes on Tsui and their marriage has been getting worse every single year. Tsui only stays with his jealous wife to continue his career as a relationship counseling author. Things however spiral out of control when a mysterious woman wants to rent one of Tsui's apartments. She quickly breaches her contract as she is unable to pay rent and tries to seduce Tsui instead. Soon enough, the mysterious woman is blackmailing the unfaithful husband while his wife is getting suspicious about his increasingly nervous behaviour. The tense situation pushes Tsui to find a radical way to solve all his problems at once.
This great psychological thriller convinces on numerous levels. First of all, the movie gets to the point in ninety minutes and has swift pace that should captivate genre fans from start to finish.
Up next, the acting performances are very convincing. The unfaithful husband with his numerous dark secrets, the aggressive, controlling and jealous wife and the clever femme fatale who has her very own sinister agenda are portrayed credibly by an excellent cast.
The plot is this film's absolute highlight. Viewers will make up numerous theories about what is really happening in this film but each time one might come to a possible theory, the movie smoothly introduces new hints, turns and twists that will keep the audience watching until the very end.
To keep it short, Deception of the Novelist is one of the cleverest psychological thrillers in recent memory and deserves much attention from genre fans all around the world.
