Dog Day Evening

一个部门的诞生

Hong Kong/China, 2026, colour, 2.35:1, 108 mins.

Director: Mai Tianshu 麦天枢.

Rating: 7/10.

Black comedy on corporate red tape and self-serving bureaucracy is an impressive directing debut by Hong Kong scriptwriter Mai Tianshu, previously in genre fare.

STORY

Hong Kong, 19 Sep 2017. Angry at not being able to get through on the helpline, Kang Yongde (Dai Yuqi), 27, an aspiring scriptwriter who lives with his grandmother (Bao Qijing), arrives at the customer-service section of Happy TV to find out why he’s still being charged a subscription when he’s already received a letter confirming its cancellation. He is politely blocked by customer-service manager Cai Zhanwei, aka Ringo (Bai Zhi), who is just going off work at 17:00. When Kang Yongde angrily insists, Ringo tries to block him again by taking him to a quiet room. Their arguing is overheard by another customer whom Ringo has also blocked – police sergeant Li Zhongbo (Mai Peidong) – and in a scuffle Kang Yongde ends up with Li Zhongbo’s gun in his hand, thereby accidentally becoming an armed terrorist. Ringo says there’s no record of him in the computer system as he hasn’t yet returned Happy TV’s set-top box. Furious, Kang Yongde holds everyone in the room hostage and collects their mobile phones: Ringo, his newbie colleague Nita (Xie Yongxin), security guard Chen Zhiwei (Huang Zhiwei), Li Zhongbo, Happy TV mascot performer Liang Yisi, aka Lucky (Liao Ziyu), and two customers who have also been trying to cancel their contracts – old lady Yin Yulan (Lu Wanyin) and young mother He Peizhi (Deng Yueping) who’s with her young son (Peng Bairan). A Happy TV reporter, Mai Jiaxin (Wu Yongshi), also ends up with the hostages when she investigates what’s going on. Kang Yongde says he just wants to cancel his contract but Ringo admits that the company deliberately makes it almost impossible. Li Zhongbo hatches a plan to distract Kang Yongde by splitting up the hostages; but in the midst of his plant there comes a phone call from Regional Crime Unit chief inpector Liu Peifan, aka Big Sister Shan (Liang Yongting), who’s learned of the situation and is outside the building with her team. Meanwhile, Kang Yongde gets several of the hostages to call the Happy TV hotline simultaneously in order to try to get an answer. They finally get through to customer liaison officer Yang Dawei (Yang Weilun), who tries to block the request with bureaucratic tricks but is finally beaten by Ringo, who knows the system so well. Yang Dawei finally agrees to fax over a Service Termination Request form. Meanwhile, Shan, who’s always yelling at her team, gets the idea that Lucky is in league with Kang Yongde, as she’s discovered that Lucky represents the Crappy TV Victims Alliance which earlier threw faeces over Happy TV’s logo. Shan alerts the commando-like Special Duties Unit. Meanwhile, Mai Jiaxin has been surreptitiously live-streaming everything with her mobile, and an audience has gathered outside Happy TV’s HQ to watch it on a big screen. But then, in a scuffle between Kang Yongde and Li Zhongbo, the latter’s gun accidentally goes off.

REVIEW

A black – by the end, very black – comedy on the evils of corporate red tape and self-serving bureaucracy, Dog Day Evening 一个部门的诞生 follows events in the customer-service (CS) department of a Hong Kong pay-TV station as a frustrated young man tries to cancel his subscription but accidentally ends up holding the staff and others hostage. Now in his early 40s, Hong Kong writer-director Mai Tianshu 麦天枢, who’s co-scripted several Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To] movies (Three 三人行, 2016; Chasing Dream 我的拳王男友, 2019) as well as lesser genre material (14 Blades 锦衣卫, 2010; Kung Fu Jungle 一个人的武林, 2014; Cesium Fallout 焚城, 2024) over the years, manages to sustain a single idea thanks to good performances that don’t go over the top and a succession of inventive developments. Trimming by about 10 minutes, and a less mushy ending, would have been an improvement but overall this is an impressive directing debut by Mai. Alas, box office in both Hong Kong (HK$8.4 million) and the Mainland (RMB1.5 million) was miniscule.

In the past Mai often worked with Hong Kong scriptwriter Liu Haoliang 刘浩良, who during the past decade has also turned to directing (crime comedy Two Thumbs Up 冲锋车, 2015; China-set crime drama Caught in Time 除暴, 2020; WW2 action movie Against All Odds 营救飞虎, 2025) and here functions as one of two creative producers 监制. Dog Day Evening is undoubtedly Mai’s strongest screenplay to date and, though the largely interior settings don’t allow much in the way of any personal visual signature, the film moves smoothly along with a sense of sustained tension and with characters and dialogue to the fore. Throughout, the widescreen photography by Hong Kong d.p. Situ Yilei 司徒一雷 (Beyond the Dream 幻爱, 2020; Lost Love 流水落花, 2022; Say I Do to Me 1人婚礼, 2023), who’s also done documentaries, is neatly composed without getting in the way.

The film gets straight down to business at the HQ of Happy TV, where a hooded protestor throws faeces over the company’s logo and the CS department is staffed by a manager (Hong Kong comedian/guitarist Bai Zhi 白只, aka Ling Zhihao 凌智豪) who’s only job is to unflappably stymie every customer request, in between lecturing a disenchanted newbie during her rest break on how to separate one’s personal feelings from the job at hand. Into this cesspool of red tape first comes an aggressive off-duty policeman, who’s promptly sabotaged by the queue-ticket system, and then angry young Kang Yongde (Dai Yuqi 戴玉麒), who just wants his subscription cancelled and won’t take no for an answer. When the policeman’s gun accidentally ends up in Kang Yongde’s hands after a minor scuffle, a “hostage situation” ensues and the police become involved, while all the time Kang Yongde pleads that he just wants his subscription cancelled.

Hong Kong’s pay-TV stations, and one in particular, used to be notorious for making it as difficult as possible for customers to unsubscribe. Mai could have pushed the film’s central idea into much more farcical territory but he generally keeps the comedy and the characters well under control, even giving the station’s manager a chance to defend his position during the movie’s darker final moments. Similarly, the tomboy police inspector, who’s always yelling at her team for incompetence but takes stupid decisions herself, later morphs into a quietly sympathetic figure who personally navigates the TV station’s Kafkaesque bureaucracy to help solve Kang Yongde’s problem. In a similar way, most of the “hostages” are sympathetic to the young man’s plight, with the CS manager also helping him beat the system.

Though it never drags or becomes repetitive, the film does become a tad too dark in the final section, after discarding its satire of red tape in favour of exploring Kang Yongde’s personal and family problems. Also, too much footage is devoted in the third act to his potty grandmother (veteran Bao Qijing 鲍起静 [Paw Hee-ching]), at the expense of keeping the “hostages” front and centre. And the main narrative is wrapped in rather conventional style, instead of introducing a surprise twist after so long. But the performances manage to motor the movie even in its weaker moments – from Bai Zhi’s robotic CS manager, the over-wrought police inspector of actress Liang Yongting 梁雍婷 (barely recognisable) and the aggrieved lead of Dai (in his first leading film role) to supporting parts like the stuttering mascot performer of Malaysian-born actress Liao Ziyu 廖子妤 and sinister TV boss of veteran Xie Junhao 谢君豪 (both coincidentally in the Mai-scripted Cesium Fallout).

The film’s Chinese title translates as “The Birth of a Department”. Filming wrapped in late Dec 2024.

CREDITS

Presented by Guangzhou Yingming Culture Communication (CN), Universe Entertainment (HK), The Film Development Fund of Hong Kong and CCIDAHK (HK), AMTD Pictures (HK), Shanghai Aim Media (CN), Suzhou Yumo Film & TV Culture Media (CN). Produced by Two Thumbs Up Film Production (HK), Infinite Imagination Production (HK).

Script: Mai Tianshu. Photography: Situ Yilei. Editing: Liang Zhanlun. Music: Lin Junhui, Chen Yubin, Pan Wensheng, Zhou Jiancong. Production design: Zhang Zhaokang. Art direction: Xu Leyi. Styling: Zhang Zhaokang. Sound: Huang Yuanze, Du Duzhi, Tang Weixuan. Action: Huang Weiliang [Jack Wong]. Visual effects: Chen Dikai (Eye Eye Studio).

Cast: Bai Zhi [Ling Zhihao] (Cai Zhanwei/Ringo, customer-service manager), Mai Peidong (Li Zhongbo, police sergeant), Liang Yongting (Liu Peifan/Big Sister Shan, Regional Crime Unit chief inspector), Dai Yuqi (Kang Yongde), Liao Ziyu (Liang Yisi/Jixiangwu/Lucky, Happy TV mascot performer), Xie Junhao (Zhong Kailong, Happy TV boss), Bao Qijing [Paw Hee-ching] (Wang Xiaolian, Kang Yongde’s grandmother), Xie Yongxin (Wang Siyi/Nita, customer-service officer), Wu Yongshi (Mai Jiaxin, reporter), Deng Yueping (He Peizhi, young mother), Lu Wanyin (Yin Yulan, the old lady), Yang Weilun (Yang Dawei, hotline officer), Zhu Baiqian (Ye Zhishu, Zhong Kailong’s assistant), Mao Yeying (Kang Yongyi, Kang Yongde’s elder sister), Zhang Dalun (Special Duties Unit team leader), Su Chenyu (Shi Jianhao, burly inspector), Xu Weidong (Deng Qikuang, thin inspector), Huang Zhiwei [Syed Zain Asad] (Chen Zhiwei, security guard), Peng Bairan (Luo Zitang, He Peizhi’s young son).

Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Asian New Talent), 12 Jun 2026.

Release: Hong Kong, 18 Jun 2026; China, 27 Jun 2026.