PAPA (爸爸) (2024)

Genre: Drama
Director: Philip Yung
Cast: Sean Lau, Jo Koo, Dylan So, Lainey Hung
Runtime: 2 hrs 9 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene & Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Golden Village
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 6 March 2025

Synopsis: Café owner Nin’s mundane but contented life is shattered forever when his fifteen-year- old son Ming slashes his mother and younger sister to death one evening. Diagnosed with acute schizophrenia, Ming is remanded to a psychiatric prison indefinitely until full recovery. Aside from visiting his son twice a month, Nin continues to lead a pedestrian existence, while memories of his wife, daughter, and son keep flooding into his head. As time passes, Nin has given up on knowing the reason behind the misfortune. He only wishes that one fine day, Ming, his sole remaining family but also the murderer of his family, will come home again.

Movie Review:

This Hong Kong movie is based on a real life incident almost 15 years ago, where a 15-year-old boy killed his 42-year-old mother and 12-year-old sister at home. His father was working at a family-owned restaurant across the road when the murder happened. The boy, who inflicted fatal wounds to the victims with a chopper, later turned himself in to the police.

While they boy had no record of drug abuse or mental illness, he told the police that the world would be better with fewer people during interrogation, suggesting that it was possible that the boy was mentally unstable when the killing took place. He was detained at a psychiatric centre after being tried and convicted for manslaughter.

Known as the 2010 Heung Wo Street murder, the incident has been adapted into a drama directed and written by Philip Yung. The filmmaker is known for helming the award-winning Port of Call (2015), a crimer thriller based on a Hong Kong murder case where a dismembered corpse of a murdered 16-year-old female prostitute was found.

Audiences expecting Yung’s latest work to be a gripping thriller filled with sensational twists and revelations will need to look elsewhere. Instead of delivering chills and excitement, the film offers an intimate exploration of family dynamics and a father’s struggle to cope with the aftermath of tragedy.

Told in chapters named after each family member (including the pet cat), the movie employs a nonlinear structure to unfold its story. There’s the father, Nin; the mother, Yin; their son, Ming; their daughter, Grace; and the family cat, Carnation. We witness how Nin met Yin, fell in love, and married her despite their families’ objections. We also get a glimpse of Ming’s life at school and how the family welcomed Grace.

Then there are moments that remind us of our own disagreements and arguments at home. We see Ming upsetting his younger sister at bedtime with a story, ignoring Nin’s advice on how to pack food, and trying to persuade his father to buy him a camera phone.

There are also moving scenes that remind us why we love our family. We smiled when Yin quietly slips her son some money after learning that he spent his holiday job salary on a camera phone. Watching the family take a group picture during their vacation in Hainan made us want to look back at our own family photos. One of the most emotionally crushing moments in the 129-minute film is the family's dinner conversation before the murder.

Sean Lau, Jo Koo, Dylan So, and Lainey Hung anchor the movie with commendable performances, with Lau delivering an exceptional portrayal of a father wrestling with the pain of losing his wife and daughter while desperately trying to understand why his son committed the deed. The actor has never disappointed viewers with the roles he’s taken on, but this is his most heartfelt and heartrending performance yet.

Lau is competing against Raymond Lam (Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In), Neo Yao (The Way We Talk), Michael Hui (The Last Dance), and Aaron Kwok (Rob N Roll) for the Best Actor trophy at the 43rd Hong Kong Film Awards, where the movie has been nominated in 11 categories. For his deeply moving performance as a father grappling with grief, we’re rooting for him to take home the prize.

Movie Rating:

(An intimate and deeply moving drama about how the father of a shattered family grapples with grief and closure, with Sean Lau delivering an exceptionally heartrending performance)

Review by John Li