Movie Review: Doomsday Party/末日派對

Doomsday Party/末日派對 is the directorial debut of Ho Hong, who had previously directed commercials.

It’s the story of a bank robbery that involves a disparate group of characters.

A bank clerk played by Kay Tse is trying to decide which man she loves; a philandering star tutor played by Wilfred Lau or a police officer played by Paul Wong.

I smell wimp.

An ambitious politician played by Cheung Kwok-keung and his mistress, played by Maggie Chan, try to keep their relationship a secret as they simultaneously work towards his political advancement.

“Do we have any more brochures?”

An emotionally challenged dropout played by Kelvin Kwan saves a young woman who is being attacked by a gang of vicious lesbians.

That don’t make ‘em bad people.

She’s played by Malaysian model Fish (!) Liew.

In movies, you get to save a young pretty girl who is, of course, demonstrably grateful.

If this was real life, she wouldn’t look or act like that.

She’d have one leg. And three kids.

Teddy Robin plays a retired schoolteacher haunted by the ghosts of his past, both professional and financial.

“You gonna skip school again?”

Doomsday Party/末日派對 is an extremely local and topical film; it touches on a lot of the hot-button issues affecting Hong Kong these days: parallel trading (aka smuggling), the 2008 financial crisis and the havoc it wrought on people’s lives, politicians with the trustworthiness of a rented snake, social alienation, new immigrants, housing, and others.

These strands, as well as the more individual stories of the characters, are woven together to make the up the story.

I don’t want to say too much about the plot, because I would rather you see the movie for yourself.

Doomsday Party/末日派對 is admittedly imperfect; some of the scenes, and the acting, and the plot twists, are not carried off as well as I might have liked.

And the epilogue, an MV that seems very much at odds with the tone of the film, was something I would have appreciated not seeing.

But for a first film it’s still very impressive.

From the opening of the film, I was very positively struck by the look of it.

破壞.

The framing, the focus, and the overall cinematography were really sharp, interesting, and rich-looking.

I especially liked the use of color in the opening credit sequence.

Speaking of which, I’ve also never heard a death metal song used for the opening credits in a local film, and I liked it.

It was oddly refreshing to see sex scenes in a local film, and both of them are utterly devoid of anything like exploitation.

One of them made me uncomfortable, and the other made me appreciate just how accurately Ho Hong captured the emotional state of some Hong Kongers.

That kid’s f@#$ing retarded.

Most of the film struck me the same way; the characters were very un-cinematic in their emotional displays.

They weren’t admirable, they were embarrassing, but only because they were so real.

The ‘bad guys’ aren’t erudite intellectuals with refined accents; they’re pathetic little weirdos with cringe-inducing delusions.

Is that… pee?

I saw the film in Kowloon Bay, and while the rather vocal habits of local audiences sometimes make me furious, this film really was made better by the Greek Chorus around me. 

The people laughed derisively at things like a radio announcer enumerating the new Chief Executive’s plans to combat poverty and housing problems. 

They know bullshit when they hear it.

By the same token, they seemed pretty supportive of the film afterwards.

I strongly encourage people to watch this film in the cinema.

It’s one of those rare movies that manages to succeed at being different but still very entertaining.

I think this movie deserves all the support we can give it, 

and hopefully that way we can see more movies like it.