The Midnight After

Hong Kong 2014
produced by
Amy Chin, Fruit Chan (executive), Winnie Tsang (executive) for Golden Scene,Film Development Fund of Hong Kong
directed by Fruit Chan
starring Wong You-Nam, Janice Man, Chui Tien-You, Kara Hui, Simon Yam, Sam Lee, Lee Shing-Cheung, Lam Suet, GC Goo-Bi (as Vincci Cheuk), Cherry Ngan, Chan Ka-Sing, Fiona Sit, Endy Chow, Jan Curious, Mike Orange, Kitty Trouble, Waiting Soul, Les Hunter
written by Chan Fai-hung, Fruit Chan, music by Veronica Lee, Ellen Joyce Loo, visual effects by Ken Law

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Hong Kong, one of the busiest towns in the world ... and yet, after a bus passes through a tunnle, the bus driver (Lam Suet) and his 16 passengers from all walks of life find the town completely deserted, they can't get anybody on the phone (even if services are intact), or find any clue what might have happened. Only, several of them die in various grotesque ways, leaving the others musing what might have been going on, and their explanations range from being lost in limbo between life and death to being caught in the 4th dimension, where UFOs from Sirius will pick them up, to a weirdly plausible eplanation involving David Bowie's Space Oddity (including a musical interlude). However, even if the population is down to 17 (and falling), humans seem to be unable to get rid of unpleasant things like greed, rape and murder - and before you know it, our heroes find themselves forced to lynch the most rotten apple.

Eventually, one of the group does get a call from his girlfriend (not among the passengers) though and learns they have been gone for 6 years (only a couple of days have passed for them) and an extensive search for them had been conducted. Before she can go into detail though, they are cut off. But then the men in gas masks appear, and even though they say they want to help, our heroes are not so sure ... and make a big escape to what they figure the cause of their weird condition ...

The Midnight After is a mostly enjoyable movie about the apocalypse (or a very weird depiction thereof), but by no means a perfect one. Enjoyable because it manages to mix healthy doses of humour into its narrative without ever coming across as just plain silly, because it doesn't waste too much time with pointless explanations (unless they are entertainingly bizarre of course), because it features hilariously grotesque death scenes, because it's carried by a bunch of fun eccentric characters (and performances to match), because it features a suitably silly car chase with effects work so campy it just feels right in the finale, and because it's very slickly directed. The film's not perfect though because it lingers on some of its plotpoints for a bit too long, some subplots lack urgency, stand in the way of the narrative or simply take the fun out of things, the whole thing ends on a rather random note, and frankly, it goes on for a bit too long.

That said, it's still a very watchable movie, and good for more than a few laughs!

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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