Night King

CinemaSerf

The savvy and enigmatic “Foon” (Dayo Wong) is managing the last of the great clubs in Hong Kong, but with the clientele’s drinking and womanising habits becoming altogether more sophisticated and with his array of gals getting a little long in the tooth for their pervy paymasters, he knows the writing might be on the wall. That becomes more certain when “Madame V” (Sammi Cheng) does a deal with the unscrupulous “Prince Fung” (Chun Yip Low) to buy the club when it’s elderly owner dies. Now he and she have quite a past and she has no compunction in throwing him and his girls on the scrap heap. Until, that is, she discovers that the dastardly young prince is out to shaft her royally, bankrupt her and get the club for a song. Over a barrel, she has to forgive and forget her troubles with “Foon” and work with his gals and his scene-stealing factotum “Turf” (Yeung Wai-Lun - who reminded me of Peter Lorre) to set up the mother of all sting operations that will save their bacon, their club and impose on the ambitious young “Fung” something he will struggle to deal with way more than losing money. He will be shamed in the eyes of his billionaire dad. As their plan takes shape we see there are no shortage of willing participants for their scheme. From dodgy millionaires, cops, barristers to even the man’s own girlfriend, folks are keen to get in on the act - but “Fung” is no fool, so they are going to have to tread carefully. Though it is a bit too long, I did quite enjoy this as “Foon” and “Madame V” take what is a fairly predicable route from all out warfare to conspiring duo. Once the scene is set for the hoax, the film rollicks along nicely with a few red herrings, a little bit of friendly loyalty, an inordinate amount of booze and some fairly horrible and pointy red shoes that could make the ancient art of chanzu look strangely appealing. It’s quite stylishly produced with a few daft gags, and a message that many of these glamorous women involved in the sex industry are nobody’s patsies. I probably won’t recall it for long, but it is quite good fun.