Derek Yee wrote and directed the gritty Hong Kong crime thriller One Nite in Mongkok in 2004. The movie is about a lot of different people and stories that come together on one terrible night in the busy Kowloon district of Mongkok. The movie’s dark and unclear emotional ending leaves a lot of loose ends leaving the audience to guess what happened to the main characters.
What was Lai-Fu motive to come to Mongkok?
The movie starts with a fight on the street that ends with Tiger, the son of gang boss Tim, dying by accident. In order to get back at Carl, the boss of Tim’s rival gang, Tim calls in a favor to have the hitman Lai-fu brought into Hong Kong illegally so he can kill Carl’s son. When Lai-fu gets to Mongkok, he meets Dan Dan a brave Mainland prostitute who becomes his guide through the city’s strange streets.
At the same time, dedicated police officer Milo is looking for the hired killer and putting together the few hints he has to stop more fighting between the rival gangs. Milo’s personal life is also in chaos. His marriage is falling apart and he has a lover who is pregnant.
What brings Lai-fu and Dan Dan together?
As the night goes on, Lai-fu and Dan Dan form an odd bond as two mainlanders lost in Mongkok’s bright jungle. Lai-fu has a cold assassin face, but when he’s with Dan Dan, he shows a kinder side. He feels sorry for her because she is a prostitute but his question about why she doesn’t just get a normal job shows how dumb he is.
Lai-fu finds his target, Carl’s son, in the end, but he has a moral crisis and doesn’t want to kill him. He calls Dan Dan on a payphone and in a moving moment, asks her to run away with him and start a new life with him. Milo and the cops rush the phone booth before she can answer because they know where Lai-fu is.
What happened to Lai-fu?
After the chaotic fight that follows, Lai-fu runs into the crowded streets while the cops are after him. The killer is chased by Milo into the Mongkok metro station where they fight brutally and bloodily on the platform as a train comes by. Both men are badly hurt in the fight.
Lai-fu stumbles onto the train and falls down, leaving a trail of blood behind him. In the crowd of people, Milo loses sight of him. Milo calls his wife to say sorry and ask her to take him back but it’s not clear if he will live.
The movie ends with Lai-fu and Dan Dan in a tough spot. Lai-fu is bleeding out on the train the last time we see him. We don’t know what will happen to him. We see Dan Dan back on the streets of Mongkok desperately looking for Lai-fu and having no idea what happened.
In the beginning of the movie, we learn that Dan Dan is working to save money for a ticket back home to take care of her sick father. She seemed ready to give up her life as a prostitute and start over after becoming close to Lai-fu. And finally when she decides to leave Mongkok in a tear-jerking scene as she says that she is never coming back she finds out that Lai-fu had left all the money that he got for assassination in her bag.
The last shot of the movie is a wide shot of the busy streets of Mongkok at night. The voiceover says that it is the world’s most heavily populated city. Even though terrible things happened, the ending makes it seem like life goes on in Mongkok and the city swallows up the characters and their dreams.
What lesson did ‘One Nite in Mongkok’ teach?
One Nite in Mongkok is mainly about people in a rough city who are trying to stay alive and make friends. Lai-fu and Dan Dan’s relationship is the emotional center. They are two lost souls from Mainland China who find short-term comfort in each other in the middle of the violence and chaos around them.
But in the end, the harsh conditions of the city and Lai-fu’s job as a hired killer finally break them apart. The movie shows how the characters are stuck in their situations; Lai-fu has to finish his mission to kill someone, Dan Dan has to work as a prostitute to support her family, and Milo is stuck between his duties as a police officer and his falling apart family life.
The characters’ efforts to get away from their bad luck are left unfinished at the end. The open ending doesn’t give audience a clear picture of what happens next. It suggests that main characters will continue to fight and face moral dilemmas, just like in real life.
Also Read: Bed Rest Ending, Explained: How Did Julie Escape?
There are also problems between mainland Chinese people and people who live in Hong Kong. The movie shows how Lai-fu and Dan Dan, who are from mainland China, are treated badly by the people who live there. This theme makes the characters feel even more alone and hard-pressed. One Nite in Mongkok is a dark but powerful look at life on the edges of Hong Kong’s criminal underworld.
