Taking a break from working with his brother Danny, Oxide Pang sits in the director's chair by himself with 2006's Diary, a psychological thriller that manages to get a breakout performance from pop star Charlene Choi, but unfortunately ends up being too overly convoluted for its' own good.

Since Diary is a picture that depends (too much so, in this reviewer's opinion) on multiple twists to tell its' story, the plot synopsis here will be brief. Basically, Charlene Choi (one half of the popular Cantopop duo Twins) plays Winnie, a mentally unstable woman whose precarious hold on sanity is threatened when her boyfriend, Seth, dumps her. She soon finds a new relationship with Ray (Shawn Yu), but her obsession with Seth is not easy to leave behind.

Diary tips its' hand early that it will be screwing with the audience's perception. While a bit of mind-bending can be a wonderful thing in these types of movies, Oxide Pang simply goes overboard, to the point that it gets hard to care about what is presented on the screen, because most times it will be shown to be BS a few minutes later. By the time Pang literally inserts a fake ending (complete with credit roll) into the proceedings, one could be forgiven if they simply throw up their arms and tap out before they have to sit through yet another "big" twist that ends up having no real payoff.

If Pang had managed to have a more concise focus and confidence in his actors, rather than using the notion of plot twists as a crutch, the end product probably would have been more successful. For a film that for the most part takes place in only one location (Winnie's apartment), Diary looks great and manages to generate some creepy feelings just from the cinematography and editing. Also, as pointed out before, Charlene Choi, who seemed eager to get away from the cute teenybopper roles usually offered to young Cantopop stars, really does do some good work here. It's a shame that her performance couldn't have been put to use in a better production.

RATING: 5