Cheng Lai-sheung

Cheng Lai-sheung is the protagonist-villain of the 2010 Hong Kong splatter film Dream Home. She is a young woman struggling to make ends meet, and is obsessed with purchasing the perfect flat, but must make 4.9 million dollars to get it, even going so far as to commit a murder spree in the house to bring the property value down so it will be more affordable. The film is told in a non-chronological fashion, showing her current position, flashbacks to her childhood, and parts of the killing spree.

Childhood
Ever since her childhood, her father told her stories about his adventures as a sailor, and when he became stricken with lung disease was forced to quit his job and stay home. Cheng Lai-sheung vows to get him a flat with a perfect view of the ocean that will be comfortable for both her mother, and her father. They go house-hunting and come across the perfect flat, the only problem being its outrageous price. Cheng Lai-sheung promises to one day buy this house. She is also more-than-ready to get a new house once her friend Jimmy moves away, and she must share a room with her brother, much to her chagrin. She becomes more determined to buy the house after her mother dies of natural causes.

Adult Life
Cheng Lai-sheung keeps herself very busy to make as much money as possible. She works two jobs, making money to pay her current utility bills, saving for her dream flat, and paying for her father's expensive medical treatments. She has essentially no personal or social life, as her constant working wouldn't leave time for this. Her one outlet is an affair that she is having with a married man. Eventually, she and a real estate agent go to put the dream flat on hold for purchasing, as Cheng Lai-sheung has almost reached her goal. However, her dreams are shot down when she learns the price has risen to the equivalent of 4.9 million dollars. This completely dissolves her mental state. She meets with the man she is having an affair with and asks to borrow money, which he is hesitant about.

Beginning
Shortly after she realizes that she will need nearly twice as much money to get the dream flat, her father's lung disease has a flair-up. She is now partially psychotic and does nothing to help him, even though she could have given him his breathing treatment and saved him. After her homicidal rage grows more, she realizes that if a bunch of people were killed in the flat complex, the price would drop dramatically. She puts on gloves, arms herself with a hammer, some zip-ties, an ice pick, and other tools. She then goes to the flat complex and murders the security guard by tying a zip-tie around his neck tightly and destroys the complex's surveillance equipment.

Middle
Cheng Lai-sheung's outfit resembles that of an electrician, and she knocks on the door of one of her would-be neighbors. When the woman prepares to talk to her, Cheng Lai-sheung breaks into the apartment and impales the woman in the had with the ice-pick. The pregnant woman across the way witnesses this and hides in her apartment. Cheng Lai-sheung uses the hammer to break the doorknob, and struggles with the woman, causing her to have a miscarriage. She then puts a plastic sheet over her head and uses a vacuum cleaner to suck the air out, killing the woman. The pregnant woman's husband arrives and finds the dead bodies. Cheng Lai-sheung hits him with a golf club and a clothes iron before he accidentally snaps his neck on a nearby table. Cheng Lai-sheung takes a knife and leaves.

A teenager with blue-dyed hair walks into the building and sees Cheng Lai-sheung leaving the apartment of her previous two victims while holding a knife, but believes her to be a building employee. He goes into flat 8B where a get-together is happening. There are two men and two girls already enjoying the party; using drugs and drinking alcohol. One of the guys takes one of the girls to another room to have sex with her. The new guest brings more drugs, and gives them to a girl who is already passed out on the couch. She vomits on the other guy's pants causing him to go change, while she goes to the bathroom to vomit more.

The guest prepares to leave to go get more drugs, but Cheng Lai-sheung is at the door waiting, and she impales him with a knife, however, he survives, but is unable to move. Cheng Lai-sheung kills the girl who was vomiting by smashing her head against the toilet. The man who left to change returns, and thinks that Cheng Lai-sheung was a law-enforcement officer who caught them doing drugs. He claims that the guest was the dealer and he had nothing to do with it, however, she impales him with a broken bong after a brief struggle. She then goes to the back room with the people who were having sex, and kills the man before impaling the woman in the mouth with a wooden plank, seemingly killing her.

End
Two police officers arrive at the door, as a neighbor complained of the noise in the flat, and the girl with the plank in her mouth attacks Cheng Lai-sheung in front of the officers, causing a struggle between the four of them that results in the girl, and both officers being killed. She takes the gun from one of the police officers, and forces the still alive drug dealer to shoot himself in the head, thus framing all of the murders on him.

Aftermath
The next day Cheng Lai-sheung reads in the paper that a tetraploid homicide-suicide occurred and the flat's property value has dropped significantly, meaning her plan worked. After combining her savings and the life insurance money from her father's death, she buys the flat after ending her affair.