Yat nim mou ming

The director is young and new, yet he manages to portray the details of depression and illision to the full in the movie. At his age, he should not have such deep understanding. He must do a lot of resaerch on the topic. The story not just show what is psychiatric illness, but the living condition of HK people, working life of white collars and problem in psychiatry service...... Extremely rich in content, i can hardly get a breath throughout the every moment of the film. The brilliance of the movie is demonstrated when compare to other movie of the same theme. Beautiful mind, It is ok that is Love, kmhm, kdrama. In these stories, the sick male leads are either genius, handsome, meeting good doctors, recover well. No miracle is found in Mad World. It is a realistic movie portraying everyday life of a mental patient. It is not entertaining. You will feel blue after seeing it. So, a brillant movie can just earn a score of 7. And it fail to go into last round of Oscar.

The acting of leads are ok. I have no particular complaint, except the father. Tsang is too experienced an actor. You always aware that he is acting a role. Overacting i would say.

I also feel unfair for the movie to show the government psychiatry as cool and robot like doctor. It is a great discouragement to those doctors truely concern patients.

The scene I remember most is in the christian church gathering. Average men are too ignorant of mental illness patient. They think they are helping, but actually are worsening the illness of patient. Public education on society should be strengthened so that patient could better fit into the society.

The director is a potential star in hk movie industry. Hk people should be proud of him

This film tells the story of a young man whose life is in havoc because of bipolar disorder. He painfully finds out that he loses his job, his fiancée, his friends and his dignity after a one year stay in a mental hospital.

I have to say I am very impressed by "Mad World". First of all, it is rare for a Hong Kong film to have a non mainstream topic. The topic is so non mainstream that it is almost a taboo. I applaud the filmmakers for making this film, exposing the pain of people recovering from mental illness and their relatives too. One person's pain is transmitted to the families because of societal ignorance, intolerance and discrimination. Some painful moments are done in an almost comedic manner, such as people taking photos of Tung in the banquet, which lighten up the mood but also provokes the debate whether it is right or wrong to act like they did.

Secondly, acting is great. I never knew Eric Tsang is so good at portraying emotional roles, as I have previously seen him mostly in comedic roles. Another strength of this film is that the plot is realistic, depressing and very touching. The plot is so strong that I think it is hard for people not to be moved. Furthermore, the production quality is actually good, especially the cinematography which is unusually good. It enhances the mood and suspense, such as the scene of water going down the drain.

I enjoyed watching "Mad World". I hope more people will watch it, making the society understand the immense agony that people recovering from mental illness and their families go through.

There have been few note-worthy films coming out of Hong Kong for some time. It does seem that every other output from the studios is a commercial film that tries hard to appeal to the gargantuan China market. In this sense, debut director Wong Chun's Mad World is an audacious and brave film.

The subject matter is mental illness and it is remarkable that the film never stoops down low to gain your sympathy through cheap histrionics. The film earns it through superlative performances and keen observations. It not only gets inside the mind space of a mental illness patient, it also studies the plight of the care-giver and the bystanders standing in the path of the malady. Neither does the film shout slogans, point fingers or offer pet solutions. Mad World is an indictment on the social stigma and medical agencies, but how it remains deeply humanist is a deft balancing act.

Shawn Yue puts in a career-defining performance as Tung, a bipolar disorder sufferer. His range is commendable and his portrayal totally surprised me. He can start taking on more challenging roles, other than rebellious hunks and rigid police officers. There is a scene of him crying late into the night, every last bit of moisture inside him is pushing out of his eyes and yet he just can't stop. When finally he did stop crying, it is because a precocious little boy who lives next door is whispering a story from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince through the thin wall to encourage him. That scene moved me, I doubt Tung can hear the story clearly, but I think at that point he needed to hear a voice from an understanding person.

Eric Tsang as a guilt-ridden father trying to make amends is such a natural. My tears rolled down at a heart rending scene where he explains why he left his family. The reason doesn't make it right, but it is perfectly understandable why he did it. As Tung's illness takes a turn for the worst, his soul becomes a constant battlefield – do I do the right thing or do I do the loving thing?

Jin as Tung's embattled mother and Fong as the ex-fiancée struggling to forgive Tung are also pitch-perfect. All four, including screenwriter Florence Chan and the director have been showered with nominations at last year's Golden Horse Film Festival and Hong Kong Film Awards, and some of them have deservedly racked up the accolades.

Where Mad World perhaps over-played its hand will be the scenes of the church portrayed as over-enthusiastic zealots and Tung's friend Louis having a turn for the worst at one point. The film felt like it was over-reaching. But I am not taking anything away from the film. This is a compassionate look at mental illness and it looks at the issue from all the angles. I would hardly call it an entertaining film, more of an affective and effective thought provoking piece of filmmaking. Give me thought provoking anytime.

Whilst perusing Netflix to find an Asian drama, Mad World popped up in my recommendations. Considering mental illness is still rather hush-hush in the east, I didn't have high hopes that Mad World would cover the topic with subtly and honesty. Color me surprised; after spending the last hour and 41 minutes with my eyes glued to the screen, I realized that not only is this one of the best portrayals of mental illness (Bipolar Disorder, specifically) I've ever seen put to film, but Mad World now competes for the best movie I've watched yet this year. How this film isn't more well-known and awarded flabbergasts me.

Mad World follows the broken perspective of Tung, a man suffering from Bipolar Disorder in Hong Kong who is released from a mental institution and forced to integrate once more into society and the shattered life he's left behind. We aren't clued in to all the details of Tung's life and unhappiness right away; we know he's depressed, missing his fiancee, and that he has a strained relationship with the father he comes to live with. Further details are lovingly sprinkled throughout the film in heart-wrenching flashbacks with perfect timing; never was I confused about the order of events or the impact they had on Tung's psyche. I come from a family plagued with mental illness; Bipolar Disorder affected both my mother and brother, and contributed to the far too early demise of my brother just last month. The manic/depressive phases of this horrific illness are both laid out here in all their painful, raw glory; the highs are sky-high, and the lows are in the pits of depressive purgatory. It isn't just Tung who suffers; his mother clearly has mental difficulties as well, and the other brother and father have their own realistic ways of dealing with it.

The performances here are all stellar. Tung's blank stares of utter hopelessness perfectly mimic those I have seen (and given) time and again when dealing with similar illnesses in my own life. Tung's father's helplessness comes through in many scenes, and his well-meaning but misguided attempts to soothe his adult son are all too realistic to what many of us suffering from depression hear: "Why can't you just be normal?" and "Why are you like this?" and "Can't you try to be cheerful?" The judgements of others play a large role here as well: Tung's fiancee accidentally makes a tense situation worse in a pivotal scene, while leering bystanders see mental illness as a spectacle to jeer.

Mad World is not a "fun" movie to watch, nor is it heartfelt in the way that most would hope, with everything being fixed at the end and tied up nicely with a neat little bow. Parts of it angered me. Depressed me. Saddened me. But most of all, as someone who has dealt with this personally, it made me feel like I am not alone. Mad World does not sugarcoat the ugly parts of mental illness, whether they are born out of the ill or those who try to support them. It is for this reason that I found it an absolute and ironic breath of fresh air, for it is depressingly beautiful in its candor.

Some last minute thoughts: the camerawork was particularly interesting here, aiding the film's dreary atmosphere. For one example, it utilized long shots of the small apartment to make you confront its claustrophobic and cramped nature. The music was perfect: it fit the mood and was used sparingly. The movie felt a bit longer than its runtime, but since every minute was engrossing, I can't fault it for that. Lastly, the characters don't grow much--if at all--during the movie. While this normally would be a flaw, it makes sense for a film about mental illness. Sometimes those affected cannot strive for higher goals--sometimes they just need to learn how to *deal* to make it through the day and get to tomorrow alive. Mad World isn't a film about a man's journey to overcome his mental illness; it's more of a day-in-the-life, where we experience what he goes through for a short time and can only hope for the best for him by the time the credits roll.

Mad World is a beautiful film that I recommend to anyone with mental illness, who knows someone with mental illness, or is open-minded enough to try to understand what living with it is like. Make sure you're in the mood to watch it, however, as it's so effective at what it does it might make you feel worse.

Wonderful Honcongo, who would represent the country at the Oscar if selected, introspective, intense, melancholy, sad, it hurts to see the father trying to save his son (although I'm sure he was the one most responsible for the youngest having abandoned them, and having overloaded the firstborn, parental abandonment, this causes deep degradations in the personality in the long run) Tung's pain, trying to get out of the emotional abyss, prejudice, hope in children, beautiful, sad and passionate...