Online Review: Midnight After (那夜凌晨，我坐上了旺角開往大埔的紅VAN)

Midnight After(那夜凌晨，我坐上了旺角開往大埔的紅VAN) was a sci-fi horror film released in Apr 2014 that was directed by Fruit Chan (陳果), which was based on the web-novel with same name in Chinese by the Hong Kong online writer nicknamed “Mr. Pizza” from the Internet forum HKGolden. The web-novel was started to serialize since July 2012, and the story had been published into books.

The film was using the Red minibus (public minibus) as the main focus. Ah Chi (Wong You-nam) gets aboard on a full capacity minibus including the driver from Mong Kok to Tai Po at midnight, and everything has changed after crossing the Lion Rock Tunnel, in which all people and car have been disappeared and only those 17 people on the minibus and the minibus itself are left in that uncertain time and space. As followed, there are a lot of suspicious incidents happened, including the mysterious masked Japanese and a passenger called Yuki(Janice Man), and some passengers are dead with unknown reasons. Therefore, Ah Chi and other passengers need to solve the mysterious incidents in order to get back to the time and space they is familiar with.

From this film, I have two things that want to share regarding the film. The first one is the film has shown how the director continues to show the concern of the Hong Kong society, and therefore constructs certain scene with interior meaning in the film. Fruit Chan is a famous film director in Hong Kong and he is well-known in directing the independent or non-mainstream film, in which his films were mainly focusing on the social situation, which he is influenced by the Japanese films in the 60s, like the 1997 Trilogy (Made in Hong, The Longest Summer, Little Cheung) was discussed about how people feel for the Hong Kong's handover to China in 1997). For this film, although it has based on the web-novel, but Chan has reflected that after the handover and in recent years, the core values and the things in Hong Kong become different, like the rule of law and moral standard, as using the minibus passed the Lion Rock Tunnel as a representation. Chan also wanted to tell the audiences that even everything has changed, but people still want to escape from the reality and do not admit those changes, just like what Ah Shun (Tsui Tien-You) had said in the film, in which he want the audience to concern about this.

Moreover, it has consisted of many Hong Kong's elements inside and the story is related to Hong Kong as well. In the film, it used the originate Red minibus/Public MInibus (紅色小巴), Lion Rock Tunnel, where Lion Rock Hill is a symbolic scenic view of Hong Kong, and cha chaan teng (茶餐廳) as representations of Hong Kong. Moreover, although the passengers are facing different problems in the film, including the suspicious incidents and feel no hopes before them, they are still face the problem even it is hard to handle, in which it shows another 'Under the Lion Rock Hill' spirit that to face the difficulties with solidarity, where it is coherent to the film title "Return our Hong Kong"(還我香港). This kind of elements are quite hard to see and express under the co-operation production(合拍片) in today's Hong Kong cinema.

To conclude, I think the film is good and a reflection of what Hong Kong happens nowadays. Fruit Chan has tried to raise the audience to face the reality of Hong Kong, and the web-novel brings the opportunities for Chan to show his concern for the Hong Kong society.

Chang Ka Ho 10519149/21423567