Midnight is a 2021 film from South Korea directed by Kwon Oh-seung.
Kyung-mi is a deaf woman who works as the deaf operator at a customer service center. She lives with her mother, also deaf, who does piece work. Mom has done enough piece work sewing dresses that she has saved up a tidy bit of cash, and is planning to take Kyung-mi on a trip to Jeju Island.
One night Kyung-mi is out downtown, meeting her mother. She is walking down the street when she hears moans of pain and sees a shoe thrown out of an alley. The moans of pain are coming from Choi Seo-jung, a young woman who has been stabbed by a vicious serial killer, Do-shik (Wi Ha-joon, who played Jun-ho the cop in Squid Game). When Do-shik sees Kyung-mi come to his victim's aid, he decides that she has to die as well. A game of cat-and-mouse ensues, as Do-shik chases Kyung-mi into a parking garage, eventually follows her home, and finally chases her into downtown Seoul.
Tropes:
- As You Know: Seo-Jung clarifies for the audience that she and Jong-tak aren't siblings with anyone else by saying, before she goes out on her date, "You don't want your only sister to look pretty?"
- Axe Before Entering: Do-shik gets an axe and chops down the door of Kyung-mi's room.
- Cymbal-Banging Monkey: It's a cymbal-banging rabbit, actually, that Kyung-mi has in her house, and it appears to actually be a noise sensor. It's still creepy and is appropriate for the arrival of murderous Do-shik.
- Danger Takes a Backseat: Kyung-mi finally gets to her car in the parking garage, gets in, and thinks she's safe, only for Do-shik to rise up out of the back seat. (How did he get there first? How did he get in a locked car?)
- Extremely Short Timespan: Just a matter of hours, as Kyung-mi and her mom run afoul of a Serial Killer during their evening out.
- Flipping the Bird: Kyung-mi takes a customer service call from an extremely unpleasant customer who demand a refund and starts flipping Kyung-mi off over the video call. Kyung-mi flips her the bird back and hangs up.
- Group Picture Ending: Ends with another tourist snapping a photo of the foursome—Kyung-mi, her mom, Jong-tak, and Seo-jung—on the beach at Jeju Island.
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Many times. Kyung-mi has been invited to be eye candy for a company dinner with some bigwigs. The men make crass comments about how sexy she is, because she can't hear them. Even though she can't hear them, she picks up from their looks and their laughter what they're talking about, so she starts signing things like "I'll grind your face" and "Shall I put you in a coffin and close the lid?"
- Many times after this, Do-shik the killer is saying things that Kyung-mi and her daughter can't hear, or they're signing things that he can't understand.
- Impairment Shot: Many scenes mute the audio to convey the experiences of Kyung-mi and her mother.
- No Name Given: Kyung-mi's mother is never named.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Do-shik is chasing Kyung-mi through a parking garage. Somehow, not only does he manage to get ahead of her, he manages to get inside her locked car!
- Parking Garage: Do-shik follows Kyung-mi into just the creepiest parking garage ever, dimly lit with flickering lights. She just barely manages to escape.
- Police Are Useless: Some of the worst cops ever manning the night shift in this particular Seoul district. First, Do-shik and Jong-tak have a brutal fight right there in the police station, while both cops are outside having a smoke break. Then, when the cops come back in and find Jong-tak on top of Do-shik with a knife, they tase Jong-tak. They don't bother to check Do-shik's back, which is filled with knives, or his van that has a badly wounded Seo-jung, nor do they make any effort to ask the two deaf women who were sitting right there what happened.
- Serial Killer: Do-shik, a deranged killer who sets his sights on Kyung-mi when she comes to the aid of Seo-jung.
- Sinister Switchblade: Do-shik dramatically flicks out a switchblade, after Kyung-mi sees him in the back seat of her car.
- Smoking Hot Sex: Do-shik dumps two bodies and then calls cops to the scene, pretending to be a bystander who discovered them. He cadges a smoke from a cop by pretending it's a Cigarette of Anxiety, but the look of satisfaction on his face as he smokes is much more like this.
- Staggered Zoom: Kyung-mi slams the button on an emergency police alarm. The camera then does a staggered zoom out to show all of downtown Seoul, emphasizing how the women are Alone in a Crowd.
- Villain Opening Scene: The first scene shows Do-shik snatching a young woman in a dark alley and murdering her.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: The whole main story unfolds because Kyung-mi finds Seo-jung, who has been stabbed in the gut but is still alive, moaning in an alley and calling out. Do-shik, watching this from his murder van, curses and then comes after her when he sees Kyung-mi go into the alley to help. Left unexplained is why Do-shik chose to leave Seo-jung bleeding but alive in an alley in the first place.
