A Light Never Goes Out

灯火阑珊

Hong Kong, 2022, colour, 1.85:1, 101 mins.

Director: Zeng Xianning 曾宪宁.

Rating: 6/10.

An interesting take on Hong Kong’s past and present identity never quite fulfils its potential as human drama.

STORY

Hong Kong, 2019. Following the death of her husband, neon-sign designer Yang Canbiao (Ren Dahua), Jiang Meixiang (Zhang Aijia) finds some keys to his work studio, which she thought he’d closed 10 years ago. Visiting it, she finds evidence that it is still being used. She tells her daughter, architect Yang Caihong (Cai Siyun), who brushes her off as over-stressed in the wake of her widowhood. Yang Caihong is planning to marry work colleague Roy (Mai Qiucheng) and move to Australia, though she hasn’t yet told her mother, with whom she has an edgy relationship. Re-visiting her late husband’s studio one night, Jiang Meixiang finds a young man, Li Denglong (Zhou Hanning), there. He says he’s Yang Canbiao’s apprentice and produces video evidence to prove it, though he wonders where his boss has vanished to. The rent on the studio hasn’t been paid for months, and the electricity has been cut off. She tells him that Yang Canbiao is dead. They find some glass tubing, in the shape of the Chinese character for “deer” 鹿, for an unfinished job; but they can’t identify who the client is. (Jiang Meixiang [Guo Erjun] and Yang Canbiao [Tang Haoran] first met in the 1970s on the roof of the building, where they both admired a neon sign there.) Jiang Mixiang and Li Denglong try to find out who the client is. (Yang Canbiao courted Jiang Meixiang at a time when the city was full of neon signs, explaining their magic.) Jiang Meixiang finds unpaid bills totalling over HK$200,000, not including Li Denglong’s unpaid wages. As a way of rasing money, Li Denglong suggests making a crowd-funding appeal, but the idea never gets very far. Eventually they think they discover the client, a woman named Shen (Liang Yongting) who runs the Wild Deer Bar, and has been trying to contact Yang Canbiao for a while. She gives Jiang Meixiang ample money to finish the job. (Back when the city was hit by SARS, around 2003, Yang Canbiao’s work dramatically dropped off, but he remained optimistic for the future.) Jiang Meixiang and Li Denglong start work, even though they lack Yang Canbiao’s experience, and the two become close. At a dinner at home, at which Li Denglong is also present, Yang Caihong introduces Roy and breaks the news about their forthcoming marriage and move to Australia in the next nine months. Jiang Meixiang is shocked she has told her only now, after dating for three years. Then, in a box owned by Yang Canbiao that the couple redeeemed for her from a pawnbroker, Jiang Meixiang finds an envelope addressed to a woman, Liu Miaoli (Gong Ci’en). And following the dinner, Yang Caihong privately tells Li Denglong to stop working with her mother, as she thinks he’s a bad influence.

REVIEW

An interesting, left-of-field take on Hong Kong’s past and present identity – via the decline of the neon-sign industry that once illuminated the city’s streets – A Light Never Goes Out 灯火阑珊 never quite fulfils its potential as a slice of human drama. Unflashily directed by Hong Kong scriptwriter Zeng Xianning 曾宪宁, in her feature debut, it’s most notable for its performances by Taiwan-born veteran Zhang Aijia 张艾嘉 [Sylvia Chang] as a sign-maker’s widow and Hong Kong theatre/TV actor Zhou Hanning 周汉宁 in his first major big-screen role as her late husband’s young apprentice. Both rise above the so-so script to etch a relationship between a widow and a son-she-never-had that partly gives the film an emotional centre. Locally Light failed to shine at the box office, taking a very quiet HK$2.25 million last month.

Sorbonne-educated Zeng first appeared on the Hong Kong scene as co-writer/director, with Yan Jia’er 严嘉儿, of transsexual mini-drama Mariage sans frontières 无性界之婚, the first segment of Naked Human Nature 赤裸人性 (2012), a Category III sex/horror package of three shorts. Between work on various TV dramas during 2017-19, she co-wrote CNY family comedy A Journey of Happiness 玩转全家福 (2019) prior to co-writing Light with Cai Suwen 蔡素文, with whom she’d worked on several TVDs as well as Journey.

Though it’s never explicitly stated in the film, the gradual decline in Hong Kong’s neon signage, in favour of cheaper LED displays, can be read as a metaphor for the city’s slow eclipse during the past couple of decades, and the widow and young apprentice’s determination to carry on her late husband’s craft as an equal metaphor for its inextinguishable spirit. So in several respects the movie – whose Chinese title literally means “Waning Light(s)” – is a wistful affair. The widow has a snarky relationship with her daughter (well played by Cai Siyun 蔡思韵, 28, after a classy supporting stint in high-school chickflick Fall in Love at First Kiss 一吻定情, 2019), who has yet to tell her mum that’s she’s marrying a work colleague and moving to Australia, so when she bumps into her late husband’s easy-going, free-spirited apprentice it’s a perfect mother-son relationship that both draw succour from.

The chemistry between Zhang and Zhou, 27, is vital to the film working, even in a modest way, and it’s good to report it’s both strong and natural. After a quiet start, things perk up considerably with Zhou’s first appearance 15 minutes in, and as the thin plot unfolds – gussied up with several character episodes showcasing actresses Gong Ci’en 龚慈恩 and Liang Yongting 梁雍婷, plus flashbacks to when the couple first met and with Ren Dahua 任达华 [Simon Yam] as the late husband – it’s the Zhang-Zhou pairing that keeps Light alight. Zeng’s dialogue and direction are solid but conventional, with a lack of moments that really take the material into another sphere.

Incredibly, it’s only the second time – following Dressed to Kill rip-off He Lives by Night 夜惊魂 (1982) – that veterans Zhang, 69, and Ren, 68, have acted in the same film – and their brief scenes here leave the viewer wanting much more, with each emitting a visible glow when together on screen. Technically the film is smooth, with low-key but well-composed visuals by Hong Kong-born d.p. Liang Mingjia 梁铭佳 (who shot Zhang’s excellent Murmur of the Hearts 念念, 2015) and restrained scoring by Hong Kong duo Huang Ailun 黄艾伦 [Alan Wong] and Weng Weiying 翁玮盈 [Janet Yung]. Overall the film could profitably lose about 10 minutes. The territory’s celebrated neon craftsmen are showcased during the end titles.

CREDITS

Presented by A Light Never Goes Out (HK).

Script: Zeng Xianning, Cai Suwen. Photography: Liang Mingjia. Editing: Chen Xuqing. Music: Huang Ailun [Alan Wong], Weng Weiying [Janet Yung]. Art direction: Mo Shaozong [Alex Mok]. Costume design: Chen Yunwen. Sound: Napawat Likitwong. Visual effects: Yang Minjie (Milpicture). Neon craft advice: Hu Zhikai.

Cast: Zhang Aijia [Sylvia Chang] (Jiang Meixiang), Cai Siyun (Yang Caihong/Prism), Zhou Hanning (Li Denglong/Leo), Ren Dahua [Simon Yam] (Yang Canbiao/Bill), Yuan Fuhua (Huang), Mai Qiucheng (Roy, Yang Caihong’s fiance), Guo Erjun (young Jiang Meixiang), Tang Haoran (young Yang Canbiao), Gong Ci’en (Liu Miaoli/Millie), Liang Yongting (Shen/Victoria), Chen Tu’an (Liu Maoli’s husband).

Premiere: Tokyo Film Festival (Asian Future), 25 Oct 2022.

Release: Hong Kong, 13 Apr 2023.