The line between a prank and a scam maybe be necessarily thin in Kwok Ka-Hei and Jack Lee Chun-Kit farcical comedy Unidentified Murder (UFO離奇命案) in which nothing is quite as it first seems. Unfolding with an almost Rashomon-like structure, the film slowly peels back the layers of reality to reveal that pretty much everyone is playing a trick on someone, sometimes rooted in a childish sense of fun, but equally a desire for attention and the money that can be generated from it in today’s attention-obsessed society.
Twenty-five years ago, Kit (Ronald Lam Tsz-Kit) and Mark (Ling Man-lung) went up the mountain with their friend Ho but returned alone. Ho’s disappearance has apparently become a legendary local mystery with the boys claiming that Ho was abducted by aliens, though some seem to believe that their story is either a trauma-born fiction or a deliberate attempt to disguise their role in whatever may have happened to their friend. In any case, the film opens with an attempt by online content creator Man (Renci Yeung) of the “Prank My Boyfriend” video channel to play a trick on her boyfriend Mark by getting an actor, Kim (Peter Chan Charm-Man), to be the retuned Ho abruptly released by the aliens after 25 years. To begin with, this doesn’t seem like a very funny prank and could be crushingly insensitive. One might assume the now middle-aged men are carrying a degree of trauma about the failure to protect their friend, or else if they really were responsible for his disappearance in someway, it could turn out of be a dangerous situation for everyone.
Nevertheless, Mark doesn’t seem to be particularly phased by Man’s prank and, on fact, sets out of prank her back by getting Kim onside to pretend that he and Kit kill him while planning to move Ho’s body due to the increased interest generated by the incident’s 25th birthday. This doesn’t seem like a very funny prank either, and it’s difficult to deny that this ultimately farcical situation began with a series of very bad decisions especially as this particular stunt is intended to work up to a marriage proposal. Unfortunately, however, nothing goes to plan and when it looks like Kim might be dead for real, the gang get a mysterious text trying to blackmail them threatening to release Man’s video of them murdering Kim online.
Or course, there’s a possibility that this is another prank too, or, to be frank, more of a scam. In this world, nothing really is certain and no one is really who they seem to be. A good friend might be playing a trick on you that could unwittingly be hurtful or insensitive though they may not mean it, while likewise they may be trying to con you out of a bit money to fight their own desperate circumstances. There’s a kind of childishness that underplays most of the trickery like a lie told by a child to get out of trouble that they then have to commit to for the rest of their lives. In this way a trick can become a shared secret, like an alternate reality that binds people together in ways few other things can. Others my be wilfully deceived by watching things like the Stardust Memories channel that purports to show evidence of aliens but may not be completely on the level. To that extent, at least Man’s channel is honest about its intentions even if it’s not clear to what extent Mark is already in on the joke.
Even if you regard it as harmless fun, these pranks too could wind up having devastating consequences and escalating to levels of death and violence all based on a series of misunderstandings. So confusing do things become while out in the mountain forest that Man even tries to grab the gun from a policeman and points it at her friends certain that they’re pranking her only to be shocked when the gun later goes off. But what could have unraveled a long-time mystery and exposed things best left buried or resulted in deadly consequences instead becomes another bonding exercise in which a group of people generate an unexpected friendship though all being in on the joke, each letting the incident end with good humour and no harm done. Filled with farcical comedy and an ironic cynicism the film seems to say that in this world where everything is grift being in on joke might be the only thing that makes life worth living.
Unidentified Murder screens as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.
Trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 