Mon Mon Mon Monsters

报告老师！怪怪怪怪物！

Taiwan/Hong Kong, 2017, colour, 2.35:1, 111 mins.

Director: Ke Jingteng 柯景腾 [Giddens Ko 九把刀].

Rating: 3/10.

Wannabe comedy-horror about high-schoolers vs two zombie-vampires is noisy, superficial and unpleasant.

STORY

Taibei city, the present day. Two flesh-eating female zombie-vampires are killing old and homeless people at night. Meanwhile, at Dongshi Senior High brilliant but nerdy student Lin Shuwei (Deng Yukai) is accused of stealing class funds by his fellow students led by Duan Renhao (Cai Fanxi). He and his gang – who include Liao Guofeng (Lai Juncheng), Ye Weizhu (Tao Bomeng) and Duan Renhao’s girlfriend, Wu Sihua (Liang Ruxuan) – humiliate Lin Shuwei in class. Later Lin Shuwei confronts the gang at an abandoned swimming pool they use but is further humiliated and almost blinded by Duan Renhao. Despite recording the whole event, Lin Shuwei gets little help from teacher Li (Chen Peiqi), a devout Buddhist who avoids confrontation. She advises Lin Shuwei to accept his punishment of community service in order to keep the peace, though she also sends along the gang’s three male members as well, on the grounds that, as they are so popular, it will reflect well on the school. At a dilapidated building where many old people live, Duan Renhao and his two followers harass the inhabitants, treating them like animals, and even Lin Shuwei eventually joins in and is accepted by the group. One night, while trying to steal some valuables from a retired old Nationalist soldier, Li Rongfeng (Qian Demen), they come across the two flesh-eating zombies, who have been hiding by day in the building’s lift shaft as they are afraid of sunlight. The four boys manage to catch the younger one (Lin Peixin) and tie her up in the basement by the swimming pool. Wu Sihao visits the group and Duan Renhao says that, as their captive is not human, they can do whatever they want with her. Duan Wenhao extracts some of her teeth and gives them as a present to Wu Shiaho. They then try to exorcise her. Meanwhile, Lin Shuwei discovers on the internet that the girl is Lin Xiuzhen, who went missing back in 1985 at the age of 12 with her elder sister, following the murder of their parents. Duan Renhao ignores his research and they continue to torture their captive. Following a major incident in class, Duan Renhao is humiliated by teacher Li, who points to his dysfunctional family background as a reason for his lawlessness. In revenge, he poisons Li’s drinking flask with the zombie girl’s blood and she combusts in flames during a basketball match in the school’s gym. Lin Xiuzhen’s sister (Liu Yi’er) sees the event on the news, and sets out to slaughter the whole school.

REVIEW

On the surface Mon Mon Mon Monsters 报告老师！怪怪怪怪物！ couldn’t be more different from the first feature by Taiwan writer-director Ke Jingteng 柯景腾 [Giddens Ko], the lightweight but likeable high-school rom-com You Are the Apple of My Eye 那些年，我们一起追的女孩。 (2011), a major hit at the time. On that film Taiwan cute went into overdrive; in Monsters the flipside is laid bare – and it’s angry, nihilistic, and often deeply unpleasant. But at the end of the day this wannabe comedy-horror about a gang of anarchic high-schoolers taking on two zombie-vampires is equally anecdotal and shallow. At around NT$42 million, box office in Taiwan was meh – and light-years away from Apple’s tasty NT$425 million.

The film was reportedly written as a reaction by Ke, then in his late 30s, to a public backlash he’d suffered after he was discovered cheating on his longtime girlfriend in 2014. Whether that’s true or not, there’s a definite anger driving the movie, as well as a desire to shock for its own sake. It opens with a scene of school bullying against a clever but nerdy student who’s accused of stealing class funds; later he faces his main tormentors down but ends up receiving more bullying and little or no support from the school’s teachers (one of whom is portrayed as a devout Buddhist averse to any confrontation). The bullied boy ends up joining the school gang, which then captures one of the female zombies and tortures her for kicks, including pulling out her teeth and screwing a nameplate across her mouth. Eventually her elder sister comes seeking revenge.

Ke paints a modern-day Taibei in which high-schoolers are in control, authority figures are helpless, and bullying, torture and worse are condoned. The problem is that it doesn’t work as a pure splatter or gross-out movie because (a) Ke keeps hinting, via the central character of the worm who turns, that the story has higher, allegorical things on its mind re outsiders and bullying, (b) the violence is simply nasty rather than generically o.t.t. and comedic, and (c) the finale is lame, almost throwaway, showing Ke really isn’t into genre cinema of this kind. Only one sequence really works at a gross-out, comedic level – the wholesale slaughter of some students (among whom can be glimpsed actor Ke Zhendong 柯震东 and actress Song Yunhua 宋芸桦 from Apple) in a school bus, to a slow, funky version of the 1960s song My Way. Other action scenes are accompanied by noisy, rappy music that simply underlines the anarchy on screen.

Performances are good-ish within their limits, especially newcomer Cai Fanxi 蔡凡熙, then 19, as the smiling psychopath who leads the school gang, and Chen Peiqi 陈珮骐 as the teacher torn between her Buddhist and humanist values. As the bully-turned-tormentor, Deng Yukai 邓育凯, 22, is okay but unnuanced; as the gang leader’s equally disturbed girlfriend, newcomer Liang Ruxuan 梁洳瑄, 23, is notable in an under-written role. Widescreen photography by Zhou Yixian 周宜贤 (Apple) is excellent, underlining the film’s frequent shifts of tone. Creative producer was Chai Zhiping 柴智屏, 51, an experienced Taiwan producer/manager who helped steer Apple and the Ke-scripted Cafe. Waiting. Love 等 一个人 咖啡 (2014); she also worked on the Mainland’s Tiny Times 小时代 quartet (2013-15).

CREDITS

Presented by Star Ritz International Entertainment (TW), Fist of Fear (TW), Amazing Film Studio (TW), Edko Films (HK), Jules et Jim Pictures (TW). Produced by Star Ritz International Entertainment (TW).

Script: Ke Jingteng [Giddens Ko]. Story: Ke Jingteng [Giddens Ko]. Photography: Zhou Yixian. Editing: Li Nianxiu. Music: Hou Zhijian. Art direction: Liao Bingyi. Styling: Wu Lilu [Dora Ng]. Sound: Du Juntang, Du Duzhi, Wu Shuyao. Action: Hong Tianxiang. Visual effects: Bao Zhengxun, Huang Meiqing (Cheer Digiart).

Cast: Liu Yi’er (elder sister), Lin Peixin (Lin Xiuzhen, younger sister), Deng Yukai (Lin Shuwei), Cai Fanxi (Duan Renhao), Lai Juncheng (Liao Guofeng), Tao Bomeng (Ye Weizhu), Chen Peiqi (Li, teacher), Xu Zhede (maths teacher), Liang Ruxuan (Wu Sihua, Duan Renhao’s girlfriend), Gao Baihe (girl outside classroom), Qian Demen (Li Rongfeng, veteran soldier), Chen Muyi (tramp), Bruce [Hong Qihan/He Haochen] (schoolboy at vending machine), Ke Zhendong, Song Yunhua, Hou Yanxi, Cai Changxian (students in school bus), Huang Lvegeng (retarded boy in shop), Wu Meihe (old woman in shop).

Premiere: Hong Kong Film Festival (Closing Film), 23 Apr 2017.

Release: Taiwan, 28 Jul 2017; Hong Kong, 28 Jul 2017.