Midnight (2021) Who said the wheel needed reinventing? (Review)

Between Gangnam Style, BTS, Parasite, and Squid Game, we have some monumentally successful Korean exports, each one putting the small peninsula on the cultural map to an entirely different audience than the last. Squid Game is especially relevant to Montage Pictures’ release of Midnight – the casting of Wi Ha-jun will increase the number of eyes on this Best Feature Award winner from Manchester’s Grimm Festival, fresh out on Blu-Ray from the Eureka Entertainment Subsidiary label. This feature debut is Written and directed by Kwon Oh-Seung is the brand of thriller that elevated Korean cinema to the global stage. Or, at the very least, recalls it.

Jin Ki-Joo is Kyung Mi, a young deaf woman who works for a call centre providing customer service for those who require sign language. Her boss asks his employees (exclusively young pretty women) to go for drinks after work with the senior members of their current contracted company, while she doesn’t usually go – Kyung Mi tricks her way into an invite. Afterwards, she looks to meet up with her mum as the pair plan a holiday away to Jeju Island. Little do either of them know, Do Shik (Squid Game’s Wi Ha-Joon) is a serial killer on the prowl about town and on her way home, she stumbles across his latest victim, So Jung (Kim Hye-Yoon). Carelessly strolling into the worst place, the killer starts a new in the silent night streets. Completing the small cast is Jong-Tak (Park Hoon), as So Jung’s long-suffering brother, who is desperately looking for his missing little sister.

There’s a white elephant in Midnight. Representation is a thorny issue; that being so, I was shocked to learn that Jin Ki-Joo isn’t a deaf actress; a shock comparable to Toby Kebbel in Dead Man’s Shoes (2004). It was such a shock as the performance is so raw, lived in and believable that I would never have guessed that she had no issues with her hearing. While a feather in the cap for the leading lady, of course, it would’ve been better and more appropriate to cast a deaf actor. However, we don’t know the story behind the casting process, so it would be inappropriate for me to assume. In an article in the Korean Times, she said: “I started sleeping wearing earplugs, as the director recommended. When I woke up, I felt like my heart and breath were vibrating. After that experience, I kind of got used to the noiseless world and relied on other senses“. Even if it is not ideal, it translates into a remarkable performance – something which she has in common with the pieces Villian, Wi Ha-jun. He is a monster who you can’t wait to get his just deserts, he is a killer that is a disarmingly attractive confidence trickster who manipulates and changes stops at a whim, a true chameleonic and hateful character – it takes a great performance to make you hate a character. 

Midnight operates on the same level as Mike Mike Flanagan’s Hush in that we can see the whole picture, as can the killer, whereas the deaf lead character and her deaf mum only perceive danger through visual cues. While this creates some incredible tension, three scenes elevate this suspense thriller to the next level. One sees Kyung-Mi and her Mum escape to the relative safety of the 24-hour pop-up police station. At this point, the killer has only been present whilst wearing a cap and face mask. When he rocks up in a suit with a case in hand (albeit one full of blades), it creates dramatic irony and a palpable sense of white knuckle terror concerning the safety of the two ladies. Another scene occurs when the killer and So-Jong’s desperate brother have caught up with Kyung-Mi. All they share is a short conversation, but it is just as shocking as any of the threat posed to the vulnerable Kyung-Mi. And the last is an extended sequence where the chase has found its way into the town centre, with its bars, restaurants, clubs and crowds. An escalation that sets up a thrilling finale.

Midnight is well worth a watch for any fans of thrillers or horror; Kwon Oh-Seung’s debut is a brilliantly acted film that is beautifully shot and pushes for a real sense of danger in its storytelling. The exact sort of thing that made the Korean New Wave such a warmly welcomed antidote to the Hollywood machine all those years ago. It is all of these things and a by-the-numbers chase movie that is transparently building up to the bad guy getting everything he deserves. And sure, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel but who said there was anything wrong with a slick and beautifully made film that sets out to do what it intended?

Extras are thin on the ground. There’s a commentary from the hardest working woman in film criticism, Kat Ellinger. And a visual essay, “the history of Korean horror cinema” by critic Travis Crawford, not that Midnight fits all that well into the Horror categorisation.

ROB’S ARCHIVE – MIDNIGHT (2021)