Nightfall

While America invented the detective genre (having its genesis in Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘tales of ratiocination’) it is becoming obvious that Hong Kong and Korean filmmakers are perfecting the form. Certainly Hong Kong filmmakers have learned a great deal from Hollywood contributions to the genre, but anyone who has seen Lau Wai Keung’s Infernal Affairs and Scorsese’s remake, The Departed, will acknowledge that while Scorsese’s film is certainly not a poor effort, it absolutely pales in comparison to the original.

If you have never watched a Hong Kong crime film, then Nightfall, directed by Roy Chow Hin-Yeung (Murderer, 2009) and co-written with Christine To, is a very good place to start, even though it must be admitted from the get-go that it does not compare with the best of the country’s crime thrillers, such as the aforementioned Infernal Affairs and the films of Johnnie To (here you can take your pick: all his films are exceptional).

Let me get the not-so-good aspects of the film out of the way first. Chow and To’s screenplay tries very hard to pull off a parallel narrative strategy where we follow both the criminal and the detectives in alternate scenes until we get to the Big Reveal at the denouement. The screenplay, in this respect, is workmanlike at best. And the Big Reveal at the end is more like a ‘we saw that one coming a mile away’ sort of affair. This is because Chow and To’s dialogue and characterisations are so belabored and clichéd that any subtlety or clever misdirection in terms of who did what to whom (a dramatic necessity in these sort of stories) is almost entirely absent. I will not be giving too much away if I say that the big revelation is a variant of the shock revelation at the end of Polanski’s Chinatown – except in this case, you will have figured it out within the first 15 minutes of the film.

Now the good stuff: the film starts with a bang – literally – with a hyper-kinetic fight between four prisoners in the prison washroom. The fight is bloody and prolonged, with the prisoner who was attacked emerging victorious even while collapsing from numerous stab wounds. We next cut to the flat of Hong Kong detective George Lam, played by the redoubtable Simon Yam (Ip Man 1 & 2, Jonnie To’s Sparrow). His young daughter disrespects him, defies him; parades her defiance in front of her new boyfriend. Lam drinks too much and has hallucinatory visions of his wife who recently committed suicide.

The guy who survived the prison assault is released from prison. This is Wong Yuen Yeung (Nick Cheung) who is released after serving a life sentence for the attempted rape and murder of a young woman. He has a picture of this girl in a locket – she bears an uncanny resemblance to another young woman, the talented daughter of a famous musician, Han Tsui, played by Michael Wong in a histrionic performance that would do any diva proud.

We observe Wong stalking Tsui’s daughter Zoe: watching her practice piano at the conservatorium, and spying on the family home through a telescope. We too spy on Han Tsui and his daughter, and see his violent nature and inappropriate affection for his daughter.

In short order we see a dark figure bash in the head of a body wrapped up in a sack, and then throw it over a cliff into the ocean, the only apparent observers being us, the audience, and the moon. Who the hell was the body in the sack?

It turns out to be the abusive and thoroughly unlikeable Han Tsui, whom we were all hoping would be killed in the previous scenes anyway. Who killed Tsui? His abused daughter? His wife? Or the man everyone suspects of the murder, recently released killer Wong Yuen Yeung?

Wong Yuen Yeung is an ambiguous figure in the film, and the filmmakers try to handle the material such that we are never quite sure what his motives are, or what his relationship is with the Tsui family. This structural balancing act, this deliberate uncertainty that surrounds Wong, is not entirely successful as a narrative ploy, as I indicated earlier. Too much is revealed too early, and what could have been a glinting knife-edge mystery at the heart of the story turns out to be a fairly blunt instrument in the hands of director Chow.

Still, there are quite a few things to enjoy in this film. It is beautifully shot. The action sequences are thrilling. Simon Lam and relative newcomer Nick Cheung deliver strong, no frills performances. The luminous Janice Man who plays Zoe Tsui is just that – luminous, and in this regard she is perfect for the role. The soundtrack is pretty cool too.

Extras on the DVD are limited to the usual Madman trailers for their Eastern Eye releases and a teaser and trailer for Nightfall.

I have to admit that there is nothing about Nightfall that will really convince you that Hong Kong filmmakers are the recent past and future of the crime thriller (as I have suggested), but as a teaser to prepare you for much finer fare – such as the films of Johnnie To – this film is an entertaining, if relatively unchallenging, addition to the genre.

Nightfall

Directed by Roy Chow Hin-Yeung

Hong Kong, 2012, 107 mins

Available to rent or buy from Madman Entertainment

Rated MA