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One Nite in Mongkok (2004)

Director: Derek Yee

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From Time Out London

Hong Kong’s Mongkok district is one of the most densely populated areas in the world; its streets pulse with hawkers flogging everything from fake Rolexes to cheap sex. People and money are inseparable here; in Yee’s natty, crowded crime thriller, dollars divide and embitter, bodies and lives are bought and the wrong people keep turning up like ‘bad pennies’. To set the mood, it roars off with a relay of scenes of a Triad turf war, switching from character to character. As the chaos subsides the film (mostly) follows honourable country lad Daniel Wu, who has recently arrived in the city to assassinate a gang boss, find his missing fiancée with the help of hooker Dan Dan (Cecilia Cheung) and avoid the team of Triad-busting cops on his trail. In the ‘Infernal Affairs’ mould (if not quite its league), ‘Mongkok’ is blighted by cliché – country folk corrupted by city, cop haunted by past trauma – and can’t quite consolidate its manifold characters and concerns (commerce, the sanctity of life). But it keeps your eyes wide open with its flair and flashes of genuine impact.

Author: NF 2005-09-20 12:50:10

Time Out London Issue 1831: September 21-28 2005