Over My Dead Body Movie Review: the Sparring Partner Director Makes a Wacky Comedy out of Hong Kong’s Absurd Property Market and Messy Political Climate

3.5/5 stars

Can you build an entire feature-length movie around one laughably stupid pun?

Ho Cheuk-tin, who directed the film from a screenplay co-written by Kong Ho-yan and producer Amy Chin Siu-wai, has arguably displayed just enough raw talent and confidence to pull off the unusual feat.

His aptitude for crafting conceptually adventurous, aesthetically considered movies out of unlikely premises is again on display in Over My Dead Body. By the time it reaches that dreaded wordplay, when a single woman laments the presence of a “male corpse” in her flat, the film has already spent an hour lampooning the city’s absurdly inflated property market.

The ensemble farce begins when the body of an anonymous naked man is found lying outside the front door of a luxury apartment owned by Teresa Mo Shun-kwan’s materialistic matriarch, by her underemployed son-in-law (Wong You-nam) as he heads out for a quick smoke one night.

Fearing that the discovery would slash the value of their flat, the family of five immediately decide to push the body next door.

Soon enough, owners of all four apartments on that floor are in on the secret – and they’re steadfast in their common goal of smuggling the body out of the building, much to the chagrin of Jiro Lee Sheung-ching’s resentful security guard.

Then again, telling a believable story may be the least of Over My Dead Body’s worries. As a no-holds-barred attempt to make fun of Hong Kong’s pervasively negative social climate in recent years, Ho’s diverting effort strikes a particularly cynical chord that is rarely attempted in other local commercial productions.

This is a silly, harmless and even slightly hopeful feature that may nevertheless touch a few raw political nerves. For some viewers, the fact it can still be found screening in a Hong Kong cinema today may be reason enough to feel ever so slightly relieved.