One Nite in Mongkok (2004)
Reviewed by: dandan on 2011-03-03
Summary: brought together by sin...
tim (suen lik-man) and carl (fong ping) are friends and gangsters. when tiger (eddie pang), tim's son, is killed after a run in with franky (sam lee), one of carl's underlings, their relationship sours. so much so, that tim gives liu (lam suet) a call, hiring someone to kill carl. liu puts in a call to the village he grew up in, back in the mainland, and it isn't long before lai fu (daniel wu) steps off the boat and arrives in hong kong, heading for mong kok.

it is christmas eve and things are not going to go smoothly. officer milo (alex fong) and his team are looking for tiger's killer and seem to be making very little progress. however, when a tip about a hired gun comes their way, a change in tact sees their efforts directed towards finding him and they're not pulling their punches. and so, lai fu finds his job becoming more difficult and, somehow, he seems to have gained a side-kick, dan dan (cecelia cheung); a prostitute he saved from a beating, who happens to be from a village near to his...

i remember being really impressed with this when it came out and i'm happy to say that it has dated very well, losing little of what makes it such a good film. for me, derek yee is a bit of an enigma: i find some of his films, or parts of them, to veer between being great and being dreadful. with 'one nite in mongkok', of all his films which i've watched, this is the one which hits its marks with the greatest consistency and misses very rarely.

the film is a really engaging affair, pulling you in and keeping you hooked with its swift pacing, which is more frequently punctuated by scenes of violence, than laboured exposition. sure there's moments where liberties are taken, both with characters and the narrative, but there's a really nice sense of plausibility to everything, for which yee and his ensemble cast all have to be given credit for.

daniel wu puts in a strong performance that adds depth, making lai fu more rounded and not just a thoughtful country bumpkin. cecilia cheung is also very good, with a role which could've easily been another "happy hooker": she's perky, but quite regularly just playing "perky", only revealing her character's depth as she grows to trust lai fu. alongside these two, are strong performances from alex fong, lam suet and paul che, who plays milo's junkie informant.

any how, not much more to say apart from that i also really quite like peter kam's score; the main incidental theme is really rather good. kinda has a bit of a angelo badalamenti quality to it...

a really good film.