Bad things happen at a morgue in Renny Harlin’s Bodies at Rest

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Director Renny Harlin has earned himself a solid fanbase by taking on films like A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4, DIE HARD 2, THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE, CLIFFHANGER, THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, DEEP BLUE SEA, and MINDHUNTERS, so it's always great to hear that he's working on another project that might be of special interest to us here at Arrow in the Head. The movies I just listed are so strong, we can give him a pass for the occasional misfire like EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING, THE COVENANT, or DEVIL'S PASS.

Harlin's latest film is the Chinese-language BODIES AT REST, which just made its premiere at the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Described as a "single-location thriller", this one sounds like it's something worth keeping an eye on for genre fans, especially since Harlin used THE SHINING as a "reference point" when making it.

Speaking with Variety, Harlin said the film is set 

in a morgue on Christmas Eve, in which two lab technicians endure a night of hell with criminals who want them to hand over a bullet found in a body. The criminals killed a member of a prominent crime syndicate and need to remove the evidence. But, we learn that the chief pathologist is the last person on earth who is going to collaborate with criminals.

Fans may be surprised to hear that a director from Finland who has mostly worked on Hollywood films is also shooting Chinese-language movies now. BODIES AT REST is actually Harlin's third Chinese film, and he told Variety how it came together: 

(Production company) Wanda Media went to Hollywood and talked to all the agencies seeking their unproduced scripts that they could produce in Chinese. They bought the rights to several, and hired a Chinese writer to translate them. When they approached me, they offered me a version of that translated back into English. I sought out the original English script, re-wrote that, and we have worked from a version of that translated into Chinese.

This is my third Chinese-language movie. I’ve been lucky enough to work with bilingual actors, but also surround myself with script supervisors, assistant directors and experts to keep me on track. Language was not a barrier for some of the great German directors working in English in Hollywood in the 1940s.

The initial screenplay for BODIES AT REST was written by David Lesser, and it would be interesting to hear how long this unproduced script had been sitting on a shelf. This is Lesser's first credit in eleven years, and he went ten years between credits before that. He has previously written episodes of '80s and '90s TV shows like Who's the Boss?, Coach, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Starring Nick Cheung, Richie Jen, and Zi Yang, BODIES AT REST is set for a theatrical release in China and Hong Kong in the first two weeks of April. Hopefully we won't have to wait long to see it in other countries.