The Book and the Movie of The Tenants Downstairs
Have you ever heard of The Tenants Downstairs? It’s a novel written by a well-known writer named Giddens Ko, and it was adapted into a movie in 2016.The original insane dark and bloody tone of the movie is not as perverted as the content of the novel. In addition, the ending of the film adaptation caused a lot of controversies. The following paragraphs will focus on the differences between the book and the movie of The Tenants Downstairs.
The first big difference I found between the movie and the novel is Mr. Wang’s mosquito coil and the liver medicine. In the movie, the landlord has an intention to induce Mr. Wang (one of the tenant) to infringe his daughter by replacing the mosquito coils in his room with the ones soaked in aphrodisiac. But in the novel, the landlord took all the liver medicine capsules that Mr. Wang would take an aphrodisiac every day. It’s a big difference in terms of the plot.
Second, we often see the tempo of the movies are too quickly due to the time limited of the movie, and this movie also have this problem.The movie's plot advances very quickly in the mid-term,and it seems too fast to the audiences, while the plot in the novel advances slowly and hierarchically. To explain it, we can see lots of the mind description by every character in the novel, they all have some of their inner words. However, most of the sentences in their heart are deleted.
Finally, the ending of this movie is very different from the novel.
In the movie, Yingru (the main female character) is a real mystery murderer, andno one knows the true story of the tenant. Only Yingru disappears. But the movie adapted into eight tenants who are all split and imagined by the landlord, including Yingru. Yingru went from a realandmysterious murderer to a split personality of the landlord. This is also a setting that makes many book fans disappointed and dissatisfied.It seems that the previous stories were made up to deceive people. However, according to the ending of the novel, no one knows the real story of the tenant at all. The only thing that is certain is that Yingru disappears and the other tenants are all missing. The house does not belong to him either. The ending of the movie make a huge change of the tenants’ existence.
In conclusion, Above the three points of view, it seems the plot of the movie does not clearly state the details of the landlord’s strategy. It only uses the lens to let the audience experience the story. Although this huge adaptation makes lots of audience feel strange and angry, and the movie does not seem as perfect as its novel. We can also give the movie high points. Especially the shaping of some atmospheres which werefully interpreted by the actors. The actors are also outstanding.
References
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A8%93%E4%B8%8B%E7%9A%84%E6%88%BF%E5%AE%A2
