[HanCinema's Film Review] "Midnight"

Kyeong-mi (played by Jin Ki-joo) is a deaf woman who works at a call center. Right away writer/director Kwon Oh-seung deftly calls attention to her life experience with a scene of customer service unpleasantness. It's just that she has to express herself entirely by signing. And as it happens, it's surprisingly easy to guess what Kyeong-mi is trying to say, even if so many people try and fail to.

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After that strong introduction "Midnight" quickly degenerates into a banal serial killer thriller. Where Kyeong-mi is competent, bright, and underestimated, her antagonist Do-sik (played by Wi Ha-jun) ranks among the most thoroughly obnoxious serial killer characters I have ever seen. His fumbling inability to kill a deaf woman is constantly belied by his ridiculous smugness. Do-sik grins as if his every stratagem is a brilliant master class of deception despite all of his plans being idiotic and working for no reason.

I really, really wish Kwon Oh-seung had leaned into this rather than try to play Do-sik off as genuinely threatening. There's a good idea here about how deaf people aren't treated seriously by the hearing, and how Do-sik can trick other hearing people into thinking he's a good guy just by wearing a nice suit and acting polite. One neat sequence involves Kyeong-mi arguing with her deaf mother (played by Kil Hae-yeon) over Do-sik's credibility because while Kyeong-mi can read lips, her mother has to rely entirely on facial expressions, leading them to different conclusions about Do-sik's moral character.

Unfortunately, since we know that Do-sik is the serial killer from the very first scene, there's no tension about whether Kyeong-mi or her mother are correct. Consequently any time spent arguing about whether or not Do-sik is a serial killer just makes anyone who doesn't immediately realize this look like an idiot. That Do-sik is constantly making snide remarks to himself about his own brilliance doesn't help matters.

In a similarly terrible editing choice, there is entirely too much noise in this movie. Recent films about the deaf such as "Journey to My Boy" and "Bori" specifically make a point of including subtitles and soft sound design, making "Midnight" a particularly frustrating step backwards. Again, most of the best tension comes in moments from Kyeong-mi's perspective, where she only has a limited idea what's going on and has to rely visual cues to figure out if there's any danger.

There's just too much emphasis on tired serial killer nonsense. At one point Do-sik threatens to slit his own throat, in a particularly ridiculous moment that is just one of many that needlessly drag the story on for far too long. The ending is almost kind of clever, as Kyeong-mi turns the tables by engineering a scenario where Do-sik can't talk his way out of it. The trouble is, none of his prior attempts to talk his way out of trouble should have worked either, for similar reasons! The script goes out of its way to accomodate Do-sik for no reason, and the movie as a whole suffers greatly for it.

Review by William Schwartz

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"Midnight" is directed by Kwon Oh-seung, and features Jin Ki-joo, Wi Ha-jun, Park Hoon, Kil Hae-yeon, Kim Hye-yoon, Jung Won-chang. Release date in Korea: 2021/06/30.