The Gospel According to Boredom
If God really hired Lee Leung, He must’ve run out of applicants. Cross (also known as Smile For Me, which sounds like a rejected toothpaste slogan) is a Hong Kong horror-thriller that takes itself so seriously it forgets to actually thrill. The premise—Simon Yam as a Catholic serial killer who believes he’s helping suicidal people reach heaven—could’ve been an unsettling meditation on faith and madness. Instead, it’s two hours of watching a man with the charisma of a damp hymnbook mumble moral philosophy between homicides.
Thou Shalt Not Be Interesting
Director Daniel Chan and his three co-directors—because apparently one wasn’t enough to carry the burden—have created something that looks like it was directed by a committee of altar boys trying to be edgy. The film mistakes dim lighting and Gregorian choir loops for atmosphere. It’s like a Sunday school lesson taught by David Fincher’s less-talented cousin. Every scene begs you to care about salvation, but all you can think about is when the sermon will end so you can go sin in peace.
Simon Yam tries, bless his brooding little heart. But he spends most of the movie staring into the middle distance like he’s trying to remember if he left the gas on. He plays Lee Leung as a man who kills out of compassion, but mostly he looks like he’s killing time. His confessions to the police—meticulously unpacking evidence from a suitcase—should’ve been chilling. Instead, it feels like watching someone unpack groceries after a long day of theological nonsense.
The Four Horsemen of Poor Editing
There are four other directors credited, and you can feel every one of them. The movie lurches between tones like a drunk priest switching sermons mid-homily. One minute it’s psychological horror, the next it’s police procedural, and then suddenly it’s a religious pamphlet that got lost on the way to a suicide prevention hotline. The editing is so inconsistent that scenes feel like they were assembled by divine roulette—spin the wheel, and we either get slow-motion crying or an unmotivated knife flashback.
And then there’s the pacing. Imagine trying to walk through molasses in church shoes while someone reads scripture behind you. Every “revelation” comes wrapped in exposition that feels like a punishment for watching. By the time Lee Leung meets his suicidal victims online, you’re rooting for their deaths—not out of malice, but mercy.
A Cast of Ghosts
Kenny Wong, Liu Kai-chi, and Nick Cheung are all in the movie, though you wouldn’t know it by the script. Their characters float through scenes like phantoms from better films. Nick Cheung in particular feels wasted—this is a man who could sell intensity with a blink, and here he’s barely given a twitch. The supporting cast performs as if they were told to whisper every line to avoid waking the cinematographer. Evelyn Choi and Océane Zhu have the unenviable job of playing women in a movie that treats women like emotional props for divine suffering. They do what they can, but the script gives them less depth than a holy water font.
When Theology Meets Amateur Hour
Lee Leung’s delusion—that he’s sparing the suicidal from damnation by killing them—could have been fascinating if the movie had the courage to question him. Instead, Cross takes his madness at face value. It plays like a PSA warning against thinking too hard about religion. We’re told this is “God’s test,” but the only test is on the audience’s patience. There’s a faint attempt at moral ambiguity, but it’s buried under so much self-serious narration and funereal music that you half-expect the credits to roll over a casket.
The film tries to blend faith and death with artistic flair but ends up with the cinematic equivalent of a rosary made of spaghetti. Even its attempts at horror are toothless: jump scares that wouldn’t startle a nun, and moral lessons that hit harder than the murders themselves. The blood looks like ketchup, the lighting like a confession booth, and the direction like someone’s first attempt at sacrilege.
“Smile For Me”? No Thanks.
The alternate title, Smile For Me, is almost insulting. The only thing that’ll make you smile during this movie is the relief when it’s over. It’s as if the filmmakers thought if they stared long enough at religious imagery, meaning would appear. But symbolism without soul is just wallpaper—and Cross is a cathedral full of bad wallpaper.
There’s a great film buried somewhere in this idea: a man’s grief driving him into spiritual delusion, a society’s moral decay reflected through religious obsession. But Cross never digs that deep. It preaches instead of explores, condemns instead of confesses. It’s all sin, no redemption.
Divine Comedy, Without the Comedy
By the final act, Lee Leung’s crisis of faith collapses into melodrama. The movie pretends to wrestle with theology but ends up punching itself in the face. The moral of the story seems to be: “Don’t trust God, He has bad quality control.” The climactic confrontation, meant to shatter Leung’s belief system, feels like a last-minute rewrite from a philosophy major who missed class. Whatever message the filmmakers wanted—about mercy, salvation, or human pain—is drowned beneath a tidal wave of sanctimonious noise.
And yet, there’s something unintentionally funny about it all. Like watching a Bible study group try to recreate Se7enwith half the budget and none of the understanding. If there’s horror here, it’s existential: the horror of watching capable actors trapped in a film that thinks being gloomy equals being profound.
Amen to the End
When the credits finally roll, you don’t feel disturbed—you feel absolved. You’ve survived something, though it’s unclear what. Maybe that’s the real test of faith. Watching Cross is like doing penance: long, painful, and ultimately pointless, but it does make you reevaluate your life choices. You start to question not just God, but why you didn’t just rewatch Infernal Affairs instead.
In the end, Cross is a film about salvation that desperately needs saving. Simon Yam deserves better. The audience deserves better. And God, wherever He is, probably wants His name removed from the credits.
Final Judgment: One star for effort, half a star for accidental comedy. If killing time were a sin, Cross would guarantee you a front-row seat in hell.
