An irascible priest loses his patience with a newcomer to Hong Kong’s funeral traditions in punchy melodrama of a film

Starting out as a prickly comedy in which wedding planner Dominic (Hong Kong standup icon Dayo Wong) switches to the funeral business, The Last Dance takes a sudden sombre turn. Dominic lands a seemingly unhinged client, turned down by all his competitors, who wants him to embalm her young son. As a string of putrefied matter hangs from the boy’s back while he is dressing him, Dominic realises he has already been dead for six months. It’s not the only mortician scene – and not the only note of unsettling realism with which writer-director Anselm Chan ballasts this well-constructed and punchy melodrama.

Bequeathed the funeral agent gig by his girlfriend’s retiring uncle, Dominic must get to grips with his new business partner: ball-breaking Taoist priest Master Man (Michael Hui), who performs the “breaking hell’s gate” rites that liberate departing souls. The veteran is unimpressed by the commercially oriented newcomer, who is so keen on flashy gimmicks that he commissions a paper Maserati for the funeral of someone who died in a car crash. It becomes apparent, though, that Man’s traditionalism is covering up his own grief and leads to his unbending treatment of anyone in his vicinity.