Midnight Train
午夜火车
China, 2013, colour, 1.85:1, 83 mins.
Director: Zhang Jiangnan 张江南.
Rating: 5/10.
Well-mounted but psychologically chaotic horror jumps the rails in its later stages.
STORY
Guangxi province, southern China, 4 Apr 2011. On the day of the Qingming (grave-sweeping) festival, 27-year-old Yang Jie (Huo Siyan) visits the orphanage in which she was raised after receiving a letter from its head (Li Zhu). When she arrives, however, the head denies she ever wrote to her. Along with the letter was a train ticket from Xijiang to Qingming that same evening and, after receiving some childhood mementos from the orphanage head, Yang Jie goes to catch the train. Tired from repeated nightmares and sedatives, she falls asleep in the waiting room and has a ghostly dream involving a child’s voice; waking up she finds someone has stolen a wig from her. The atmosphere on the train is gloomy and the conductor, Lin Zhenfei (Wang Shuangbao), is unfriendly. Yang Jie meets a handsome fellow passenger, Hongmao (Li Zonghan), who charms her but keeps disappearing and re-appearing. Meanwhile, a hysterical middle-aged woman, Xie Yao (Hui Yinghong), keeps insisting that Yang Jie is her lost daughter, Tingting (Daotian Lu’na), for whom she’s been searching for 18 years.
REVIEW
Some three years after his low-budget HD horror Midnight Taxi 午夜出租车 (2009), writer-director Zhang Jiangnan 张江南 returns with Midnight Train 午夜火车, a better-funded and considerably slicker exercise in spookiness but again let down by a thin script that isn’t much more than an elaborate shaggy-dog story. Where Taxi concentrated on a cab-driver (played by Hong Kong’s Chen Xiaochun 陈小春 [Jordan Chan]) who couldn’t work out why his car kept disappearing at night, this one focuses on a nervy young woman (China’s Huo Siyan 霍思燕) who takes a ride on a ghostly train and can’t work out why a hysterical middle-aged woman (Hong Kong’s Hui Yinghong 惠英红 [Kara Hui]) keeps claiming she’s her long-lost daughter.
Unlike the plainly directed Taxi, Train uses a full battery of horror effects, from grungy, shadowy photography by Hong Kong’s Li Tianwei 李天卫 (Harpoon 惊魂游戏, 2012; Bleeding Mountain 凶间雪山, 2012), fancy flash-cutting by his compatriot Zhang Zhenfu 张振富, lots of darkness and mist, and a variety of weird fellow-passengers. It’s to the credit of 31-year-old Huo – an interesting actress (Distant Thunder 迷城, 2010; Double Xposure 二次曝光, 2012) who’s yet to properly establish herself on the big screen – that her psychologically unstable heroine isn’t just a cute scream-queen; in fact, in her saner moments she’s a very independent, quite abrasive character who gives as good as she takes, and is more than up for a bit of train sex with a handsome stranger (smoothly played by Li Zonghan 李宗翰) she keeps bumping into between carriages. However, her psychology remains unclear at best, and her actions unmotivated on any level, reducing the “plot” to a long series of manufactured shocks capped by a chaotic finale that tries to explain everything.
Onetime action queen Hui, who’s turned into quite a horror diva in middle age, plays the central character’s crazed nemesis at full tilt throughout, while veteran Wang Shuangbao 王双宝, as the train’s ominous conductor, brings some calmer gravitas to the goings-on. The striking technical advance between Taxi and Train raises hopes that writer-director Zhang could deliver in the future if he chooses to continue his Midnight series. But first he needs to sort out his scripts, and get a proper handle on his characters’ psychology.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Tianjin Elight Pictures (CN). Produced by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN).
Script: Zhang Jiangnan. Photography: Li Tianwei. Editing: Zhang Zhenfu, Zhang Jiangnan. Music direction: Wei Qiliang. Art direction: Li Jun. Sound: Chen Ting, Zhu Xiaojia, Hu Liang. Visual effects: Wang Yong (Beijing Long Qing Culture & Arts Development).
Cast: Huo Siyan (Yang Jie), Hui Yinghong [Kara Hui] (Xie Yao), Li Zonghan (Hongmao), Wang Shuangbao (Lin Zhenfei, conductor), Li Zhu (orphanage head), Daotian Lu’na (Xie Tingting), Bai Jinbo (Xiaopang, train policeman), Lai Jiatong (Liu Dafei), Kai Di (Mianyang), Chen Yinying (Old Li’s wife), Liu Qifei (young Yang Jie), Rong Qingzong (Yang Jie’s father), Zhou Guoqiu (Yang Jie’s mother).
Release: China, 8 Mar 2013.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 7 Apr 2013.)