Movie Reviews
Review | Dog Day Evening: Kafkaesque comedy reflects on a Hong Kong hostage incident
3.5/5 stars
The notoriously treacherous hurdles that Hong Kong telecommunications company i-Cable used to put in front of customers looking to unsubscribe from its internet and pay-TV services throughout the 2000s and early 2010s provide the premise of this Kafkaesque comedy-drama – an alternately hilarious and heartbreaking case of raging against the system.
Marking the feature directing debut of Mak Tin-shu, best known as the Hong Kong Film Award-winning screenwriter behind crime thrillers Trivisa and Detective vs Sleuths, Dog Day Evening reveals a flair for deadpan humour that might not be immediately obvious in his past scripts.
Loosely inspired by a 2014 incident in which a knife-wielding student caused a stand-off in i-Cable’s Tsuen Wan office over a cancellation dispute, the narrative sees aspiring filmmaker Tak (Yukki Tai, The Lyricist Wannabe) go berserk inside the customer service office of Happy TV after his demand to terminate his grandmother’s TV plan invites mockery from a jaded desk agent, Ringo (Michael Ning).
When Tak grabs a gun dropped by an off-duty police officer (Mak Pui-tung of The Sparring Partner) trying to subdue him, the heated argument escalates into a full-blown hostage situation involving several other Happy TV employees and clients, who are all sympathetic to the young man’s contractual plight.