The Last Dance

The Chinese entertainment culture is not reknowned for its emotional output but occasionally out pops a movie that transcends the mainstream by a mile.

This one is such a movie and I've not seen one as good since I saw another Chinese movie, "The Shower" back in 2005.

"The Shower" has family ties and traditions as its centerpiece and has you biting your lip with heartrending scenes and I recommend that you watch it.... it's a marvellous movie.

This movie, though, goes even further and had most of the spartan audience blubbering unashamedly as the story brilliantly unfolds.(the audience spartan because the screening was at 9.50 pm on New Year's Eve.)

It starts with a middle aged, handsome and personable man falling into debt as a result of his failing "Wedding Planner" business in Hong Kong. The failure mainly because of political upheaval and the financial crisis.

He is offered a lifeline by one of his relatives and the lifeline is in the form of a partnership with an elderly, strict and irascible Daoist priest who runs a funeral business. The business follows very strictly and sincerely the ceremonies of the religion..

A clash of ideas immediately surfaces and we are treated to a tour-de-force of acting by every member of the cast, as we see how tradition faces the new world. The clash sweetly resolves into a mutual respect as they start to understand each other.

Underneath the main storyline is the family interplay of the Daoist priest, and a look into the characters of his son and his troubled daughter.

Daoist tradition will not permit a woman to conduct the ceremonies of sending the deceased to the afterlife as they are thought to be worthless. The son is only a reluctant follower to appease the wishes of his father.

The relationship between the Wedding Planner and the priest is a lovely story of adaptation and compromise while the relationship between father, son and daughter has everybody weeping in the theater at its intensity.

Some of the scenes where they embalm the deceased, especially one where they tenderly embalm a young child are almost too hard to take. But the skill of the cinematography and the gentleness of the acting lets you just about hold on.

If you can watch this movie without crying you must have a heart of stone, just a brilliant production.

A Hong Kong movie for the people of Hong Kong, it's been a while since the last time I've seen something like this. And the result shows. A testament that movies should be based on quality and not for the wider market only then can you create something that truly transcends to everyone. The Last Dance delves into an ancient tradition of the Canton people, and looks at how something like this affects the society of today. And by looking at the deceased, can we truly appreciate the living. A wonderfully created, dynamic film that has more to do with emotions, families than the topic itself and the box office is its best testament. Perhaps more impressive is the immaculate cinematography, it's so picturesque yet soaked in tradition and culture.

I went in watching this not knowing a single thing but was weeping by the end of it. This is a character-driven movie with well-written characters. I'm not sure if it was intended but the start of the movie made me slightly uncomfortable (?) because the protagonist was clearly in it for the money, which was understandable because he had a lot of debts. However as the movie progressed and Dominic (the protagonist) gained more experience in the funeral business, he also became more empathetic and respectful of not only the dead but the dead's family. It was really good but the one aspect of this movie that hit me the most was the relationship between Hello-man and Man Yuet, his daughter. Throughout most of the movie they barely got along but it was when crisis struck that he and his daughter started getting closer. They didn't have a perfect relationship but they loved each other in their own ways and it's another parent-daughter dynamic that reminded me of the quote from Arcane, "Is there anything so undoing as a daughter?"

This one is that kind of movies that linger in your mind, that make you think about life, that give you certain positive impacts.

The casting is great and the acting of the individuals is near perfect.

The movie is good for audience of any religious background, for audience who believe or not the last dance is meaningful for the death, for audience who has good/bad bonding with the family, for audience who is struggling for life, and even for audience who doesn't like going to cinemas.

Hong Kong movie industries have been relying too much on kungfu/gangster stories for the last 10 or even 20 years. This movie is a major break-through while in Asia Korean/Japanese movies have been dominating.

Good job!!

I didn't want to go see a movie about a Hong Kong funeral director, but my wife made me go. Sounded boring. But WOW. This is one of those rare movies that can appreciated by all cultures and all age groups. It's a dark comedy that can make you smile or have tears of compassion well up in your eyes -- even as you follow the story in subtitles. I am not familiar with the Chinese actors, I hear that some of them are very well known, and I can see why. They were all brilliant, bringing to live a screenplay that is rich in emotion and drama. Solid editing and post-production work as well. Catch it if you can. Maybe someday it will even be on Netflix!