Customer Reviews

Longest Nite

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Longest Nite is a very, VERY dark Hong Kong thriller starring Tony Leung as an extremely bad cop having an extremely bad night - you know, the usual round of smashing hoodlums' gun hands, torturing suspects and witnesses alike, finding a headless body in his apartment with a locker number written on its hand, being set up to kill the crimelord he works for: probably all in day's work in Macau.

While the first 20 minutes or so are very grim and exceptionally merciless, when the plot kicks in and the wheels start turning and the fingers start pointing, it actually becomes a gripping little number, with one quite superb sequence at a ferry station as the walls start to come crashing down on our anti-hero. Sadly the last 20 minutes are average shoot-em-up stuff that lacks the ingenuity of the central sting, but if you can stomach the violence it's well worth a look. Leung in particular is ideally cast - he has the perfect hangdog face for this kind of character, conveying world-weariness, confusion and desperation without seeming to need to make any effort.

This is Lau Ching Wan at his best. This film is another reason why he has proclaimed the acting crown of Chow Yun Fat once he left Hong Kong to do movies in the US. Many of Lau Ching Wan's movies have him characterized as the cool cop you would wanna hang with or the lovable hard-on-his-luck guy that girls can't help [but]feel something for. In the Longest Nite, he is just a pure bad-ass with a bald head. The taxi scene and his conversation in his holding cell with Tony Leung are worth the purchase of this movie alone! DO buy it!

I've know about Tont Leung for awhile now and know that he is a superb chinese actor. He was the undercover cop in the movie "Hardboiled" with Chow Yun Fat. In this movie he is cool, as other reviewers have noted, he plays a corrupt cop. You really have to pay attention watching this movie. The little details such as phone numbers of a restaurant and the number written on a hand of a headless corpse. My favorite part is where the assasin tells Sam that he'll know what will happen in an hour, talk about suspense. This movie was made in 1998 is I'am not mistaken. The languages that are only available for this movie are cantonese and mandarin. The pace that the subtitles appear is a bit fast, becomes even more important because there is no wasted dialog in this movie. Longest nite is a bit violent, Sam likes to snap off fingernails as a form of torture and he is generally sadistic.

This film boasts an incredible first hour as Tony Leung Chui-Wai's corrupt cop attempts to keep rival gangs from breaking a truce on the night of an important triad meeting. He's also trying to keep at bay a wave of two-bit hitmen who have come into town in response to a contract on one mob boss's head. Oh, yeah, and if all this wasn't enough, a decapitated body is discovered in his apartment and a bald Lau Ching-Wan is popping up mysteriously like Clint Eastwood in one of his Westerns. What develops is one of the more inventive and devious chess matches on film.

I remember seeing this film for the first time and finding myself just smiling over its intricate plot and images. There's a dimly lit scene in a holding cell that's magical despite being somewhat brutal, and Tong Leung and Lau Ching-Wan are excellent.

The film does unravel a bit in its final act. The final showdown is a bit over-the-top and noisy, but the filmmakers (Milkyway Productions) have built up so much goodwill during the previous hour or so that it doesn't matter. Until "The Mission" came out, I considered this Milkyway's finest effort.

Highly recommended.

For the record, the DVD contains some unsubtitled footage of a press conference and initial showing with the cast. There's an excellent trailer (though it is incorrectly preceded by a scene from the actual film) and some unused footage (without sound). Unlike the VCD, the subtitles are not small and can be removed. One may select either Cantonese or Mandarin (oddly enough, there is a line or two of Mandarin which is subtitled in English while there is no accompanying Cantonese dialog).

This is a must see DVD! This movie is Hong Kong action at it's best, and it is almost perfectly made. The movie never slows down and you must pay attention to detail. As I said befor this is a must see DVD.

Tony Leung is Sam, a bad cop who's caught in a gang war in Macao. he works for Brother K, who's in negotiations with rival triad boss Lung to join forces after a long-running feud. And then there's a word on the street that Lung's life is equal to five million. And the bold stranger( Lau Ching Wan) comes in thepicture then it gets worse....

Disturbingly violent, perfect pace, and very involving plot. There are more twist in this movie than L.A. Confidential, etc.

"The Longest Nite" is a dark, moody movie with a minimum of gunplay at first, but no lack of violence, that builds to a tense (but sadly unrealistic) climax. Lau Ching Wan, a Milkyway regular, plays the deadly calm Tony, a mysterious figure in disco denim who crosses paths in Macau with self-professed "bad cop" Sam, played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai. Lau is the baddest of the bad. I'm tempted to call him "the Asian Benicio Del Toro," and not just because there's a physical resemblance. Lau is the coolest guy to walk Portland Street since Chow Yun Fat left for Hollywood. And in many ways, LCW even surpasses CYF's coolness.

Leung's rumpled Sam--quite a departure from the suave Tony/Alan in "Hard-Boiled"--is not just a bad cop, but cruel, too. He spends the movie crushing the hands of hit men and sticking ice picks under their fingernails. Sam is trying to keep the peace between Mr. K and Mr. Lung, a couple of adversarial triad bosses trying to break out from under the thumb of Mr. Hung, the Biggest Boss. Only thing is, everybody starts turning up dead, and fingers (and guns) start pointing at Sam.

In staging the final confrontation between Sam and Tony, director Patrick Yau Tat Chi pulls out all the stops with the gunplay, but also throws out all the logic: apparently in HK there are abandoned warehouses with hundreds of mirrors strategically arranged in an upright position? Instead of the over-the-top firearms action that steps decisively into "enough already" territory, "TLN" would have been much more satisfying with a short, brutal hand-to-hand fight between the two bad guys, followed by the nifty little twist at the end that makes you go "hmm." Maggie Shiu gives both the strangest and the most fascinating performance in the film, as a neurotic club hostess who is not what she seems.

The DVD transfer is above average, but it's too bad it wasn't better--the picture is somewhat diffuse, and there is noticeable ghosting, particularly in night shot--because "TLN" boasts excellent cinematography and editing, with some funky and innovative scene transitions, quirky establishing shots, and visual flourishes. The music, however, is another story: the major musical piece is Giorgio Moroder's theme from "Midnight Express" (if memory serves). Which is not a bad piece of music, but why not make some of your own? "Composer" Raymond Wong answers that question by starting the flick with a light, happy 12-bar synth blues piece that not only doesn't fit the mood of the movie, but returns to suck every last bit of tension from what should have been a very dramatic confrontation between Lau and Leung. It's a shame, because cheesy music is one of my major peeves about HK flicks, and some of Wong's other original music is pretty damn good. Of course, the ripping of the "Midnight Express" (or was it "Scarface"?) music calls into question the originality of the rest of the score, but Wong shows promise. Too bad he couldn't (or wasn't allowed to) write something a little more fitting.

While the movie's sound is not great, and the voice and effects sync is noticeably off, the Universe DVD includes the most extras I've seen on an HK disc, including star files and a movie trailer; a short "premiere show" with comments from Leung, Lau, and To, and an appearance by Simon Yam; a "making of" featurette; NG footage; and a press conference (Cantonese, no subs).

I have a great deal of respect for Johnnie To Kei Fung and Wai Ka Fai's Milkyway Image Productions. Milkyway is committed to making interesting movies with style, and their efforts put them head and shoulders above the usual profiteering hacks that dominate the HK movie industry. "The Longest Nite" is a solid and noteworthy bit of originality in the middle of a sea of hasty rip-offs and sequels. Now if they would only pay as much attention to the music as they do to the cinematography, they'd have, hands down, the best product on the market.

The movie will not make a whole lot of sense at the start but gets moving along pretty quick.

Tony Leung Chia Wai plays a bad cop who has to find out who is trying to kill this crime boss. Everthing is explained at the start but it changes real quick. Lau Ching Wan comes in as a mystery man and we eventually find out why he is here. Lau puts on another great acting performance in this.

I have to say that there is not really anything I can think of that would have made this movie better. Acting was top notch, directing job was great, cinematography was great. Like when Lau Ching Wan is sitting down in a room and has a ball that he throws against the wall and lets it just fly by his face. The music was great and fit the movie really well and the end of the film even had me thinking for a while. I guess the main reason I liked it is because I really like dark films, so turn off the lights for this.

The DVD released from Universal Laser Disc and Video Comapany/Tai Seng has a press conference, behind the scenes, and other stuff I couldn't understand because there is no English subtitels on the extras. The bloopers were still fun to watch though. The 5.1 sound is very good, very food job of subtitling, and a good widescreened picture that is pretty much perfect.

The Longest Nite is by far one of my faviouite action films for it shear use of story, actors, characters, and shoot outs.

In the film Lau Ching Wan plays a cunning hitman that is hired as plan to destroy Tony Leung's career, Leung plays a ruthless and corrupt police officer who's helping the local Triad gangs in their turf war with other Triad criminals.

Lau Ching Wan and Tony Leung are superb in this film and oppose each other with an entertaining and riviting excellance of acting. Fans of films like 'Heroes Never Die' and 'Running Out of Time' will love this film. This is a well made film that excells against anything that the Americans could make as it gives great proformances through out the entire cast. A good film to add to an action collection as it as smart as it is action packed.

This film is for people with a fully loaded mind rather than an empy shell for a head that gets filled up with useless and mundane films. This is cinema at it's best.