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‘Sons of the Neon Night’ Review: Juno Mak’s Long-Delayed Hong Kong Action Drama Is Paper Thin
After the pandemic pushed back its post-production, flimsy Hong Kong fantasy 'Sons of the Neon Night' finally sees the light of day.
After drawn-out conversations about the bomber’s past, his mental state and his potential connection to Chi-tat, “Sons of the Neon Night” begins introducing brand-new major characters at regular intervals of about 20 or 30 minutes. Brothers, wives, old allies and enemies, they all feel like puzzle pieces belonging to a much more sprawling miniseries, given that each one’s backstory is explained in the form of an entirely new subplot that segues hastily away from the central mystery, while grasping at a thematic connection between deaths from the drug trade and pharmaceutical cruelty. Likewise, its character drama seldom supports its many scene-capping speeches about human nature, which similarly renders its theme music (by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto) perfunctory, since it scores empty physical and emotional space.
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