Few films mix genres with as little regard for consistency of tone as Ann Hui's entertainingly offbeat Visible Secret. From the opening sequence, which features a headless corpse staggering clumsily through a downtown street, the film is an odd mix of the creepy, the comic, and the romantic. Strong performances and well-composed visuals (cinematographer Arthur Wong (Once Upon a Time in China) won a Hong Kong Film Award for his fine work) keep the story involving through all its frequently absurd digressions. For example, a subplot involving the Peter's (Eason Chan) failing career as a hairdresser gets a surprising amount of screen time. In one scene, while the boy whose hair he's cutting reads a violent comic, Peter accidentally nicks his ear, bloodying the boy's face, which thrills the boy, but understandably horrifies his mother. This kind of goofily disturbing humor is typical of the film, and it's a credit to Chan and co-star Shu Qi (The Transporter) that they somehow manage to maintain our interest in the fate of their characters through such nuttiness. In another scene which wonderfully twists genre expectations, June (Shu Qi) offers nonverbal encouragement from the sidelines while Peter tries to placate a friend of theirs who's apparently possessed by the spirit of a scorned girl who committed suicide. While the film would probably be scarier without all this comic business, Hui does manage to produce a few chills, and even attains a surprising degree of poignancy. Her visual flair and her willingness to cross genre boundaries make the entertaining Visible Secret a very worthwhile diversion.