The Last Dance Review: I’m So Glad I Watched This Terrific Hong Kong Funeral Drama, Starring Michael Hui & Dayo Wong, In Cantonese

The Last Dance (NC16)

Starring Dayo Wong, Michael Hui, Michelle Wai, Chu Pak Hong

Directed by Anselm Chan

Almost at the end of the year comes this terrifically sombre yet celebratory end-of-life pic starring, oddly enough, two Hong Kong comedy kings.

Directed and co-written by Anselm Chan (Ready or Knot) who ditches his rom-com pedigree, The Last Dance is such a well-scripted and marvellously acted human drama that's so moving and meaningful in a custom-vs-change, ancestors-vs-descendants, life-vs-death way, you'll surely cry.

FYI. I saw this movie in its original Cantonese at a reviewer’s screening because the Mandarin-dubbed version wasn’t available then (thank goodness). So my tears were totally authentic.

Don't be put off by the morbid topic. This journey, actually multiple personal journeys, is more hopeful than mournful, more solace than sorrow. Equally heartwarming and heartbreaking, it's a funereal tale that's really more about the living than the dead.

A cantankerous old-school Taoist priest, Master Man (veteran comedian Michael Hui), performs ‘Breaking Hell's Gate’, an elaborate funeral ritual in which he twirls, smashes tiles and jumps over fires to free the souls of the dead to send them for reincarnation.

Due to a retirement, the newly-installed co-owner of his coffin shop, Dominic (standup comic Dayo Wong from A Guilty Conscience), is a commercially-inclined funeral planner, one generation younger, who's more concerned about the mourners grieving by the side.

The priest, dictated by ancestral rules, finds the practices of his inexperienced new partner ghastly when the latter sells tacky merchandise in tailor-made wakes and commits a major blunder which leaves a bereaved family irate.

“You just didn't care. You don't take funerals seriously,” the master slams the newbie derisively.

At first, you'd agree because Dominic, stumbling accidentally into the business after losing his wedding-planner job in the pandemic, seems like a soulless, eager-to-please, money-minded hustler who thinks weddings and funerals are essentially the same. One is for the newlywed and the other, the newly dead. And both are simply “shows” to be staged by his trendy young team.

But deep down, the dude is actually an empathetic kind soul in his humane treatment of those in pain next to those who've passed. In poignant scenes, he preserves a deceased boy for a desperate mother unwilling to let go and secretly lets a forlornly sad woman see a loved one for the last time despite being instructed not to.

Man, the young child being cleaned and shrink-wrapped for a crypt looks so realistically dead and creepy, you'd think it's the Ju-On ghost kid right there. By the way, the actors playing corpses are thanked in the closing credits.

You can tell director Chan is clearly inspired by 2008's similarly-themed Oscar-winning Japanese drama, Departures. Because he conveniently turns Dominic into a caring make-up artist like the dignified dresser of the departed in that said flick so that he can frame great shots of final farewells in very teary close proximity.

They're effectively sentimental sequences. But a touching touch too contrived.

Luckily, Chan makes his version more interestingly HK-centric by going beyond the Departures semblance. As even deeper down, Dominic is a closet iconoclast in the breaking of ironclad tradition.

Here, the barriers include Man's restless paramedic daughter, Yuet (the captivating Michelle Wai, director Chan's regular muse in his movies), facing the impenetrable prejudice of the distant father she yearningly loves with her big pained eyes. “Women are filthy,” he tells her, clashing with her at every turn. While Ben (My Prince Edward's Chu Pak Hong), living in the shadow of his demanding tradition-bound dad, hates the assistant-priest burden he's inherited solely because he's the son.

Their story arcs, from the aggravation between the partners to the tension in the siblings to the plight of distressed mourners, are truly engrossing with Chan's handling of his cast making them a joy to watch.

Hui's serious mien is spot-on. While Wong's standup-comedian instincts strangely make him quite perfect in floating like an enthusiastic gameshow host taking care of things at very unhappy events. He's revealed to be a pragmatic man who sees life as a countdown in which he intends to forgo kids of his own, despite his pregnant girlfriend, to avoid having them grieve his passing.

Director Chan's script is so astutely relatable it's amazing he's achieving it with comedians.

Just watching Hui and Wong sing, in a coffee shop, an old reminiscent song about dying is pure living itself.

Because, as The Last Dance superbly shows, the main thing about death is, ultimately, life. (4.5/5 stars)

Photos: Clover Films