HONG KONG—The Midnight Heat section of the 47th Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF47) this year features three riveting movies that will give viewers chills and thrills.
Danish provocateur Lars von Trier returns with a third season of his deranged hospital psychodrama The Kingdom, 28 years after its first airing. Creepy, acerbic and slyly meta-textual than ever, the five episodes of The Kingdom Exodus see the Dogma 95 advocate back to his best with this darkly humorous, unapologetically Scandinavian tale that taps into our primal fears surrounding mortality and medicine.
Image courtesy of HKIFF47
From surreal horror to absurd humor, French director Quentin Dupieux’s latest cinematic oddity, Smoking Causes Coughing, is a weirdly charming superhero trifle of casual gross-out playfulness and deadpan visual gags. It sways into assorted horrifying stories where joyful irrationality is the new normal.
Image courtesy of HKIFF47
In his viscerally entertaining thriller, Project Wolf Hunting, South Korean director Kim Hong-sun turns a vessel loaded with dangerous criminals into purgatory. The suspense soon escalates into an unfeasibly violent tale, where fistfights give way to unspeakable horrors.
Image courtesy of HKIFF47
From March 30 to April 10, HKIFF47 will host screenings and audience-engagement events in theaters and online. On the HKIFF official website, the full program and screening schedule are now accessible. The general public can buy tickets through URBTIX.
Midnight Heat:
- The Kingdom Exodus [EP. 1-2] by Lars von Trier
- The Kingdom Exodus [EP. 3-5] by Lars von Trier
- Smoking Causes Coughing by Quentin Dupieux
- Project Wolf Hunting by Kim Hong-sun
Watch the sneak preview of the films’ trailer below: