Midnight Diner

深夜食堂

China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 101 mins.

Director: Liang Jiahui 梁家辉 [Tony Leung Ka-fai].

Rating: 7/10.

Veteran Hong Kong actor Liang Jiahui [Tony Leung Ka-fai] makes a likeable directing debut with this mellow collection of character studies.

STORY

Shanghai, the present day. In the city’s backstreets is a small, Japanese-style cafe/bar – serving home-cooked Chinese food – that is owned and run by one man (Liang Jiahui). The eaterie opens at midnight and closes at dawn. One of the regulars is Lian (Jin Yanling), a fishmonger, who pretends to get drunk on baijiu and is always arguing with her grown son Kaiyuan (Yang Youning) who, inspired by his best friend, boxer Wang Hu (Jin Shijia), is training for his first match. Meanwhile, Kaiyuan has fallen for a nurse, Mingyue (Liu Tao), who has a crippled young daughter (Zhang Hailing). A new customer is aromatherapist Xiaomei (Zheng Xinyi), who wants to lose weight as her dream man from high-school days, Tai (Chen Jianzhou), is coming to Shanghai and she finally hopes to find out what his feeling are for her. Along with the avuncular Zhong (Feng Cuifan), a retired tailor, the most frequent regular is Long (Zhang Li), an orphan who grew up with the owner’s family and is almost like a younger brother; though generally quiet, Long does, however, have a temper that can erupt suddenly. One day Xiaoxue (Jiao Junyan), a young singer-songwriter who’s returned from living in Canada, walks in and is given a free meal by the owner, who listens to her story. On another occasion in the eaterie she by chance meets a record producer (Deng Chao), who gives her a big break. After an absence of two years Zhang Sisi (Zhang Yishang) returns to the eaterie and has her favourite snack, a plain omelette. She’d originally come to Shanghai from Hunan province with childhood friend Tang Song (Wei Chen); he’d worked as a taxi driver while she pursued her dream of being a model, but their different ambitions had split them apart. Between cooking his customers their favourite snacks, the eaterie’s owner listens to all their various stories with a philosophical detachment.

REVIEW

At the grand old age of 61, Hong Kong actor Liang Jiahui 梁家辉 [Tony Leung Ka-fai] makes his debut as a director with Midnight Diner 深夜食堂, a foodie-cum-character film set in Shanghai’s backstreets that slides down a treat. The film is a real Asia-pudding but doesn’t seem so, despite being financed by Mainland companies, shot in Shanghai by a largely Hong Kong key crew, and played by a mixed cast from Greater China with a script adapted from a Japanese manga. Anchored by Liang’s own genial performance as the title eaterie’s owner, it’s essentially a collection of stories – some more imaginative than others but all informed by a feel-good benevolence and optimistic view of life and human nature. Despite Liang’s name, and a strong cast of youngsters and oldsters, the film made only a specialised RMB24 million in the Mainland.

The series of books by Abe Yaro 安倍夜郎 (see first volume, left) which began in 2006, have already been adapted into several Japanese TVDs, as well as a 2015 South Korean TVD and Japanese film, plus a 2017 Mainland TVD directed by Taiwan’s Cai Yuexun 蔡岳勋 and starring China’s Huang Lei 黄磊 as the owner (see poster, below left). Abe’s formula is potentially inexhaustible – he’s already up to 22 volumes – and the homely setting of a backstreets cafe/bar peopled by all sorts of night owls only adds to its success. The Mainland TVD, however, was criticised for being too literal in its adaptation and not sufficiently Chinese-ified; in this light, Liang’s version, written by Nanjing-born, Hong Kong-raised, US-educated film-maker Zhou Sun 周隼 [Chris Chow] (Strawberry Cliff  赎命, 2011; Cherry Returns 那年夏天你去了哪里, 2016) plus Shanghai-born TV writer/a.d. Chen Junjing 陈隽璟 and writer-director Zhu Yingxin 朱滢心 (online horror 灵魂纸扎店, 2016), is almost a response to that, with stories and characters that are very part of Shanghai as well as addressing several aspects of contemporary Mainland life.

Thus, the books’ Greek chorus of three office ladies is transformed into three mobile-enslaved millennials (two girls and one metrosexual boy), whose initial arrogance is gently put down during the opening scenes. The local policeman is given a family connection to the owner and invested with a typically Mainland explosive temper. And other characters are given a specifically Shanghai tinge or stories closely linked with the city’s image. The script’s first half fluidly mixes together various stories, including flashbacks. At the hour mark, however, the film is taken over by a single story about two smalltown friends from Hunan (a taxi-driver and wannabe model) that’s much more like a standard episode in a portmanteau movie and disrupts the easy flow. Only at the very end does the script bring all the earlier characters back, in a touching finale.

In a masterclass on minimal acting, Liang quietly anchors the film as the unnamed owner of the eaterie, hinting at a colourful past without giving any particulars and settling customers’ problems via his simple snacks and philosophical air. Other casting is pretty much faultless, from oldies like Hong Kong’s Feng Cuifan 冯淬帆 [Stanley Fung] as a retired tailor and Taiwan’s Jin Yanling 金燕玲 [Elaine Jin] as a raucous fishmonger to younger players like the Mainland’s Wei Chen 魏晨 (whodunit Lost in White 冰河追凶, 2016, which starred Liang) as the lovestruck taxi driver, Jiao Junyan 焦俊艳 (the best friend in When Larry Met Mary 陆垚知马俐, 2016) as an aspiring singer-songwriter and TV actress Liu Tao 刘涛 as a crippled girl’s quiet mother. Hong Kong’s Zheng Xinyi 郑欣宜 (daughter of late comedienne Shen Dianxia 沈殿霞 [Lydia Shum]) is both funny and touching as a chubby aromatherapist with a super-sensitive nose, and Mainland names like actor Deng Chao 邓超 and director Zhang Yibai 张一白 pop up in humorous cameos as a music producer and boxing trainer, with Deng given the film’s closing joke.

Diner never reaches down very far emotionally but has a consistently likeable tone, underscored by warm music from Japanese TV composer Nagaoka Seiko 长冈成贡 and clean, unglossy visuals by d.p. Chen Chuqiang 陈楚强 (Call of Heroes 危城, 2016). It’s refreshing to see a major name like Liang making his directing debut with such a mellow, modest character piece rather than the type of splashy crime/action movie that’s dominated his 35-year-long acting career. The film was shot in Shanghai in early 2017; the closing credits include a “special thanks” to Hong Kong director Xu Ke 徐克 [Tsui Hark].

CREDITS

Presented by Fortune All Asia-Pacific Entertainment (Shanghai) (CN), Gravity Pictures Film Production (CN), Zhejiang Baoxing Pictures (CN), Shanghai Such A Good Film (CN), Shanghai Enjoying Movie (CN). Produced by Fortune All Asia-Pacific Entertainment (Shanghai) (CN).

Script: Zhou Sun [Chris Chow], Chen Junjing, Zhu Yingxin. Manga: Abe Yaro. Photography: Chen Chuqiang. Editing: Kuang Zhiliang, Tang Hua. Music: Nagaoka Seiko. Music supervision: Yu Youfan. Production design: Huang Jialun. Art direction: Liang Zixian. Styling: Zheng Xiuxian. Sound: Zhou Yi, Di Feifei. Visual effects: Bai Shangxun (Lix Digital Studio). Food sequences: Zhang Qing (direction), Chen Lin (photography).

Cast: Liang Jiahui [Tony Leung Ka-fai] (eaterie owner), Wei Chen (Tang Song, taxi driver), Jiao Junyan (Xiaoxue, singer), Zheng Xinyi (Xiaomei, aromatherapist), Zhang Yishang (Zhang Sisi, model), Jin Shijia (Wang Hu, boxer), Jin Yanling [Elaine Jin] (Lian, fishmonger), Feng Cuifan [Stanley Fung] (Uncle Zhong, retired tailor), Zhang Li (Long, policeman), Liang Jingkang (Qiufan, millennial girl), Du Yuchen (An’an, millennial boy), Wang Jingwen (Qinqin, millennial girl), Deng Chao (Xin, music producer), Yang Youning (Kaiyuan, Lian’s son), Peng Yuyan [Eddie Peng] (gym trainer), Liu Tao (Mingyue, nurse), Zhang Yibai (Wang Hu’s trainer), Chen Jianzhou (Tai, Xiaomei’s dream man), Hao Ping (Jin Wanfu, talent manager), Jiang Wenli (Jin Wanfu’s wife), Wu Tingye (boxer), Zhang Hailing (Duoduo, Mingyue’s daughter), Chen Qiannan, Li Zi, Liu Shengnan, Li Xiang, Luo Xueli (girl group).

Release: China, 30 Aug 2019.