BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

kosmasp A solid try/stab at a crime thriller. Unfortunately this isn't as good as you might hope for. It aims high but can't quite deliver on that promise. Apart from story flaws (and/or the predictability of its twists and turns) even some of the well known actors are a bit of a letdown. Especially the "villain" of the piece goes really OTT in a very bad way that is.You can still watch the movie and enjoy it, it's just that you might want to use that time and watch a better movie. The thrill factor isn't that high, unless you really can avoid guessing where this is heading. I can't imagine how that would be possible, but who knows. Not completely bad, but really not good either

dumsumdumfai Every viewer has a his/her own line of believability for plot lines. The line between acceptable realism and ridiculousness is not that wide but varies from person to person.This works for me. Works better than say, overheard 2 or the beast movie. Those are probably technically a bit better. Even though the plot here is just as borderline over the top. I can't really tell you line, but this one stayed behind the line for me.Yes, the opening sequence of the fight is a bit over. But maybe because it kind of calm down after that. It got the action out of the way. The mystery is not that mysterious and is well lay out for audience to catch-on. The performances are up to par. Likely because the pacing is not in a hurry.There are complaints. The washroom sequence of different levels is an old trick I don't like to see. It's dumb down to trickery. And near the end a bit more, flash back and tidying up then probably needed be - we get it. And I wonder why they didn't close up the cop's daughter relationship instead.

caseymoviemania Two years ago, Roy Chow's highly-anticipated directorial debut in MURDERER (2009) was a serious train-wreck of a movie which featured terribly absurd plot and especially a ridiculously over-the-top performance by Aaron Kwok. And now he's back with another psychological thriller. At the first glance, his new movie entitled NIGHTFALL is simply hard not to miss. After all, it features two of among most top-notch Hong Kong actors working today -- Nick Cheung and Simon Yam. Coupled with an intense trailer and the infamous "wanted by police" poster which has attracted mass popularity among the public, there's no doubt that the marketing campaign so far has done a truly effective job to lure the viewers into seeing the movie. Unfortunately the movie itself is a polar opposite. Instead of what could have been a strong thriller turns out to be a complete cop-out. I'm sad to say that like MURDERER, NIGHTFALL is yet another cinematic embarrassment that totally wasted the talents of Nick Cheung and Simon Yam.The movie opens intensely with a vicious prison fight involving Eugene Wong (Nick Cheung) being assaulted by a number of other inmates in the shower room but he manages to retaliate by killing them all with his bare hands and a metal drain cover. Then, we later learn he is released after serving 20 years in prison. The first thing he does is spying on Zoe Tsui (Janice Man), a piano student whose father, Han (Michael Wong), is a celebrity opera singer. So he ends up renting a shack directly across from Tsuis' country mansion and uses bugging devices to eavesdrop every conversation as well as telescope to monitor every movements. He discovers that Han is an abusive father who is particularly dislikes Zoe to befriend with any guys at all because he thinks all men out there are monsters.Enter Inspector George Lam (Simon Yam), a burned-out cop who has a murky past involving his suicidal wife. He is called upon an investigation when Han is found murdered in a gruesome manner. With the way Han is killed, he immediately suspects Eugene as the main culprit. However, the case turns out to be more complicated than it seems as Lam digs further into the Tsui family history and discovers there's something fishy going on behind all the murder.Clocking at 107 min, NIGHTFALL is certainly a butt-numbing experience that feels like forever. On paper, Christine To's script sounds like a potential winner but the execution itself is such a bloated mess. Again, she and Roy Chow can't resist the temptation of toying the viewers with a number of misdirections and twists for the sake to spice things up. Unfortunately a lot of things doesn't make a lick of sense, because they just lay out the surface but they don't even bother to elaborate them further. Coupled with an awfully slow pace, this movie is simply an uninvolving thriller that doesn't recover at all as the story progresses further.For example: When Wang is first released from prison, we see him wandering around the streets of Hong Kong, eating ice cream while ogling young women. Then he begins stalking on Zoe, which strongly suggests him as a pervert. But what comes later is entirely different story altogether. Let's just say Wang isn't exactly a perverted or psychotic type -- but actually a victim of circumstances who simply doing this because he wants to prove something to the cops. And seriously, his sudden change of character from what we see earlier and subsequent scene is simply preposterous. Then there's Simon Yam's character as George Lam. Earlier, we learn he still can't get over his wife's suicidal death and convinced that she's actually being murdered by someone. Unfortunately that subplot isn't explored further and not even mention again as the movie moves on. I could go on and on with plenty more flaws surrounding this awful movie, but you just have to watch it yourself to see what I mean here.As for the cast, I really admired how Nick Cheung has worked very hard to pull off a convincing act as a convict with mental problem. But despite his impressive toned-up muscles and method acting (in which he performs entirely with body language because his character depicts as a mute person), it's too bad that his role is underwritten to make him worthwhile. Same goes to Simon Yam, in which he is wasted here as well. The rest of the supporting actors are equally disappointing as well, with Michael Wong overacts as an abusive father and Janice Man sleepwalks through her dual role as Zoe and Eva.Another glaring problem here is Chow's lackluster direction to keep things as suspenseful as possible. Often in times, he simply stops cold with lots of talky expositions rather than presenting them in an engaging visual manner. If anything, only the minor scene involving the exciting mano-a-mano fight between Wang and Lam in the Ngong Ping cable car (even that alone served more as an excuse for no reason whatsoever).But none of the problems come worst than the climactic third-act. From here onward, both Roy Chow and Christine To has gone overboard by laying out all the expository revelation of the actual going-on. The good news is, the ending has none of the shockingly out-of-nowhere twist like MURDERER but even so, the twist here is so heavily convoluted that you will be scratching your head in disbelief once you piece out every puzzle altogether.NIGHTFALL is a huge disappointment and particularly a wasted opportunity to utilize Nick Cheung and Simon Yam in a satisfying manner. One of the most disappointing Hong Kong movies of the year.

moviexclusive Not often do you get two of Hong Kong's best actors together on the big screen, so the pairing of Nick Cheung and Simon Yam alone should interest you in the mystery thriller 'Nightfall'. Alas if you're looking for this latest Roy Chow Hin-Yeung film to be as gritty and compelling as Dante Lam's 'Beast Stalker' or 'The Stool Pigeon', you're likely to be quite disappointed- because both actors are essentially wasted in a movie that is too caught up in its own self-seriousness for its own good.To be fair, we probably should have kept our hopes low, knowing that Chow is once again teaming up with his directorial debut 'Murderer's' screenwriter Christine To. Anyone who's seen the latter film will know that it was quite simply one of the worst movies of that year, with an infuriating twist ending that all but turned its heavy-handed proceedings into unintentional comedy. Thankfully, To avoids that mistake this time, opting for a far more straightforward mystery that nevertheless still requires a significant suspension of disbelief on the part of her audience.As formula would have it, the film starts off with two seemingly unrelated murder cases that grow increasingly intertwined as the story progresses. On one hand is a gruesome murder committed twenty years ago of a young teenage girl named Eva (Janice Man), whose convicted murderer was her boyfriend Wang (Nick Cheung). Shortly after Wang's release from prison, Eva's father- the acclaimed classical tenor Han Tsui (Michael Wong)- is found brutally murdered and dumped into the sea near his sprawling mansion up in the mountains.Investigating the case is the disillusioned veteran Lam (Simon Yam), who obsesses over previously closed cases of death by suicide, convinced that- like the death of his wife five years ago- they weren't accidents. Lam sees a connection between Han Tsui's death and Wang after recognising a striking resemblance between Han's daughter Zoe (also played by Man) and Eva. Of course, we know as much from the scenes of Wang stalking Zoe in her residence, going so far as to acquire a village hut opposite Zoe's house and using a telescope to observe what goes on in the house.Any hope that the film lives up to the promise of the trailer of an intriguing whodunit is quickly dashed when one realises that the movie only revolves around these few players as well as Eva's distressed mother. You'll probably guess right at the start that it isn't simply a crime of vengeance, though Han- as the domineering parent- had disapproved of Wang's relationship with Eva all those years back. Indeed, what transpires comes closer to a Greek tragedy, made no less subtle by blatant overacting and an overly zealous score from Japanese composer Shigeru Umebayashi.Guilty of the Aaron Kwok brand of overacting in 'Murderer' this time is Michael Wong, whose violent outbursts at what he perceives as his daughter's disobedience comes off histrionic and ultimately contrived. There is too little subtlety in his over-the-top performance, and not enough motivation for us to believe in his character's propensities. The fault isn't entirely Wong's, since his character- despite being a key supporting player in the scheme of things- is thinly drawn.The same can be said of almost all of the characters within the movie. Other than being a doppelganger for Eva, Zoe is cast too simply as the meek goody-two-shoes living in fear of her father's temperament. Yam is shortchanged with the clichéd role of a troubled veteran police officer, as To's script does little to elaborate his own traumatic past or attempt to link it to the investigation. Probably the meatiest role here is Cheung's, which the actor rewards with a searing intensity that also came with months of working out- not that his character is particularly well-drawn, but compared to the rest, at least his comes off the most rounded and realistic.There's however too little realism in the movie, in particular Wang's amazing ability at evading an entire team of police officers several times and his just as outstanding powers of infiltrating what is supposed to be a heavily guarded residence after Han's death. Most perplexing is why Lam would confront Wang on an Ngong Ping cable car no less, other than for the fact that it must have seemed exciting to watch. Every step of the way, Chow's ham-fisted direction is all too apparent, trying too hard to emphasise the tragedy within the story and in the process draining too much momentum from what is really a standard police procedural.Its mediocrity would have been fine if it didn't have both Simon Yam and Nick Cheung as its lead cast, both actors worthy of much less pedestrian material than what 'Nightfall' has to offer. Certainly, it is a definite step-up from the appallingly bad 'Murderer', but don't go in expecting the same kind of compelling thriller as 'Beast Stalker' or 'The Stool Pigeon'. And yes we know, this is the second time we're comparing this movie to the latter two, simply because though it aims to be of the same pedigree, 'Nightfall' simply falls short, and what is left is a plodding and generic thriller that barely raises a pulse.www.moviexclusive.com