'Dinner' by Kaz Cai is a supernatural romance by a filmmaker who has produced, directed and/or edited documentaries and live concerts over the past decade, and whom also has a number of television commercial Apollo Awards to her name. With multifarious accolades, it comes as no surprise that this short packed the most punch. It’s the best written, it grips you right from the start and doesn’t let you go till the end. It has interesting characters—you’ll never go wrong with ex-convicts-turn-good who wishes to forge friendships with just about any old lady you meet in the middle of the night along a creepy street. The best ambience, it’s vintage lighting as a renaissance of the 1924 era, and the cricket sounds accentuating the spooky deserted streets in the middle of the night. With minimal dialogue, this is easily the best showcase of the adage “Show, don’t tell”, especially when you can easily infer what is going on onscreen. Kaz shows impeccable eye for detail, her mise-en-scène stunning. The still chair against a passing bicycle, the smiling old lady sitting on a bench centralized within the frame, which tracks out to show her sitting directly beneath the lighted cross of a church. Which in itself is really creepy, the fact that everything occurs on Chinese Valentine’s Day, which falls on the seventh day of the Hungry Ghost Month, in itself a clear harbinger that things may be anything but normal—to the audience, but sadly not to our protagonist.
'Dinner' by Kaz Cai is a supernatural romance by a filmmaker who has produced, directed and/or edited documentaries and live concerts over the past decade, and whom also has a number of television commercial Apollo Awards to her name. With multifarious accolades, it comes as no surprise that this short packed the most punch. It’s the best written, it grips you right from the start and doesn’t let you go till the end. It has interesting characters—you’ll never go wrong with ex-convicts-turn-good who wishes to forge friendships with just about any old lady you meet in the middle of the night along a creepy street. The best ambience, it’s vintage lighting as a renaissance of the 1924 era, and the cricket sounds accentuating the spooky deserted streets in the middle of the night. With minimal dialogue, this is easily the best showcase of the adage “Show, don’t tell”, especially when you can easily infer what is going on onscreen. Kaz shows impeccable eye for detail, her mise-en-scène stunning. The still chair against a passing bicycle, the smiling old lady sitting on a bench centralized within the frame, which tracks out to show her sitting directly beneath the lighted cross of a church. Which in itself is really creepy, the fact that everything occurs on Chinese Valentine’s Day, which falls on the seventh day of the Hungry Ghost Month, in itself a clear harbinger that things may be anything but normal—to the audience, but sadly not to our protagonist.