Mad World 一念無明
Showtime: December 5, 2018 – 7:00PM
101 minutes
Director: Chun Wong
Writer: Chor Hang Chan (as Florence Chan)
Stars: Shawn Yue, Eric Tsang, Elaine Jin
Rated 14A
Cantonese with English subtitles.
Mad World won 7 awards on the festival circuit including the grand Prix for best film at the Osaka Asian Film Festival, the Audience Choice Award at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and it was Hong Kong’s submission for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
Former financial analyst Tung (Yue) is released from a mental health facility having suffered a severe mental breakdown. His estranged father (Tsang) is there to meet him and takes him back to his tiny Hong Kong flat while he recovers. Tung begins to make tentative steps back into his old life, but finds that the stigma of his illness goes everywhere with him and former friends are reluctant to be seen with him. While he continues his battle to return to some kind of normality, Ting also contends with his damaged relationship with his father and meeting his former fiancée for the first time since the breakdown.
To watch a film tackle mental illness as sublimely as Wong Chun’s ‘Mad World’ is something to savour.
