Review | Back Home movie review: Mirror’s Anson Kong impresses opposite Bai Ling in Hong Kong horror full of ghosts – and social satire, if you watch closely
- This supernatural horror with Cantopop star Kong as the clairvoyant protagonist is chilling enough, but will likely be appreciated more for its social satire
- The tortured star’s desire to stop seeing ghosts? A metaphor for Hongkongers turning a blind eye to injustice, says director Nate Ki
3.5/5 stars
A daring effort for what it’s worth, Back Home is an eerie occult horror that works even better as a thinly veiled, caustic parody of Hong Kong’s social and political environment of recent times. There are few precedents of its calibre in the city’s cinema and there probably won’t be many more to follow.
While the immense popularity of Cantopop boy band Mirror isn’t exactly bringing world peace or doing everyone much good, some rising local filmmakers do have the band’s more prominent members to thank for bringing attention to niche genre projects that might otherwise sink without a trace.
Kong impresses here as Wing, a psychologically broken young man who was tortured as a kid when his ability to see ghosts – via his “third eye” – alienated him from his school peers, turned his father away from the family, and drove his mother Lan (Bai Ling), a Cantonese opera performer, insane.
Having fled home to live with his uncle in Canada for over 10 years, Wing believes he has lost his third eye after a long period of deceiving himself that he is no longer seeing things. Then a suicide attempt by Lan, who is discovered with her tongue cut out, brings him back to Hong Kong to face his demons all over again.