‘The Last Dance’: Tokyo Review

Dir/scr: Anselm Chan Mou-yin. Hong Kong. 2024. 126mins

The pandemic crippled quite a few Hong Kong companies, together with the marriage planning firm of 50-something Dominic (Dayo Wong). One business that has bucked the pattern is the funeral enterprise and so Dominic stumbles into the dying care business, bringing with him a marriage planner’s sense of event and buyer care. To succeed, he should win over his enterprise companion: Grasp Man (Michael Hui), a cantankerous Taoist priest. The third movie from Anselm Chan Mou-yin (Prepared o/r Rot), The Final Dance combines chewy home drama with lighter moments exploring the unlikely friendship between slick, money-obsessed Dominic and the grumpy authoritarian priest, to interesting, if considerably predictable, impact.

A forthright examination of the collision between custom and feminism

The Final Dance screens in Tokyo following a world premiere on the Hawaii Movie Competition and the opening slot in Hong Kong. The image earned star Michelle Wai – a standout as Grasp Man’s no-nonsense paramedic daughter Yuet – Greatest Actress at China’s Huading Awards. Following the image’s heat competition reception, the home launch date was shifted ahead to November ninth, and it will likely be launched within the UK and Eire on November 15 by Trinity CineAsia. Whereas it’s an image with area of interest enchantment, the forthright examination of the collision between custom and feminism, plus the vivid depiction of Taoist funeral rituals, might make it a title of curiosity for followers of latest Hong Kong and Chinese language cinema.

Wang brings an attention-grabbing comic’s physicality to this dramatic position. His Dominic is a person who appears angular and unwell relaxed, shoulders barely bowed below the burden of the money owed he has accrued. His smile doesn’t fairly conceal the desperation that he feels. His girlfriend’s Uncle Ming (Paul Chun) is retiring as a companion in a funeral store and handing his half of the enterprise to Dominic, and throws him in on the deep finish together with his first project: helping at a conventional Cantonese bone assortment ceremony. This entails disinterring a corpse – it must have been buried for six or 7 years  – within the presence of the household and scraping the bones clear of the fibrous decayed physique tissue. The unflinching digital camera picks out each final grisly element. And Dominic is decidedly inexperienced across the gills by the top of the ceremony.

However he takes to the enterprise with aptitude, regardless of just a few hiccups alongside the best way (the creation of a full-sized paper Maserati funeral providing falls flat with the household of a younger man who, it seems, was killed after he crashed a Maserati). And his relationship with the frosty Grasp Man begins to heat.

At this level, the main target of the movie shifts away from Dominic and onto Grasp Man and his household. Grasp Man’s son Ben (Pak Hon-chu) adopted the household custom to develop into a Taoist priest, however he watches soccer on his telephone throughout prayer rituals and was persuaded by his spouse to be baptised with a purpose to get their son right into a most well-liked Catholic college. Yuet, in the meantime, would have fortunately taken over her Dad’s ceremonial robes, however for the truth that ladies are thought of “filthy” and “repulsive” in accordance with Taoist teachings. Yuet tries to not take it personally, however her father’s rejection of her whole intercourse has began to put on her down.

Conflicted, strong-willed and empathetic, Yuet is by far essentially the most layered and complicated character within the movie, and the scenes wherein the daughter confronts her ailing however cussed father are highlights. Barely much less efficient are the later scenes between Dominic and Grasp Man, who lastly bond over biscuits and singing. However the movie’s most distinctive component is its detailed account of funeral rituals. This throws up just a few incongruous mixtures – the plaintive piano rating that accompanies the preparation of the partially decomposed corpse of a kid, for instance. However it does make sure that this world of dying feels totally lived in.