The Midnight After (2014) is a film in which the inexplicable and the peculiar intersect in the most unexpected ways. Fruit Chan, one of my favorite directors in the early 2000s with films like
Durian Durian (2000) and
Hollywood Hong-Kong (2001), tells a story here in which a handful of passengers on a Hong Kong mini-bus pass through a tunnel only to find that, once they reach the other side, they are the only survivors in a deserted urban landscape--the reason?--possibilities include time travel/zombies/nuclear radiation/a deadly virus. We are as uncertain as the characters. All we know is that we are witness to the most heinous acts of violence and horror alongside impromptu music videos and wacky humor--all rolled together as only Fruit Chan can do.
At one point the passengers ruminate about the fate of Hong Kong after
the upcoming 2017 elections, which is all too relevant considering the
occupy movement currently unfolding. In the end, it seems that Fruit Chan is one of only a few directors
unafraid to mix genres to this extreme and to this degree of success.
The Midnight After is an adaptation of a web novel by online writer Pizza entitled
Lost On A Red Minibus To Taipo. The film has been characterized as
post-apocalyptic and as a
satire.
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