European Premiere | In Competition
Hong Kong, 2024, 130’, Cantonese and Hakka Chinese
Directed by: Philip Yung
Screenplay: Philip Yung
Cinematography (color): Chin Ting-chang, Leung Yau-cheong
Editing: Jojo Shek
Production Design: Ida Mak
Music: Ding Ke
Producers: Amy Chin, Effy Sun
Cast: Sean Lau (Nin Yuen), Jo Koo (Yin Wu), Dylan So (Ming Yuen), Lainey Hung (Grace Yuen), Yeung Wai-lun (Salty), Helen Tam (Lee Fung-yee), Tai Bo (Uncle Kim)
Date of First Release in Territory: December 5th, 2024
How can a father ever come to terms with knowing that his wife and daughter’s murderer is none other than his own son? Director Philip Yung grapples with this difficult question in true-crime drama
Papa. Though much smaller in production scale than his previous film, the 1960s-set epic
Where the Wind Blows,
Papa is by no means any less creatively ambitious with its heavy subject matter and complex storytelling structure.
Like Yung’s acclaimed
Port of Call,
Papa is based on a real-life murder that dominated the headlines: In 2010, a 15-year-old teenager killed his mother and younger sister after hearing a voice telling him to eliminate excess population on the planet. His father escaped the murder because he stayed behind at his restaurant, located just across the street from their home. The teenager was sentenced to psychiatric treatment for the murders, and his father still visits his son every week.
Wisely avoiding a sensational true-crime movie approach, Yung’s pseudo-fictional telling of the story is a sensitive character study of the father, renamed Nin Yuen (Sean Lau) in the film. Told in non-linear order, the intricately pieced narrative (remarkably assembled by editor Jojo Shek) goes back and forth between random fragments of Nin’s memories and his life in the aftermath of the murders. While there are moments of unbearable sadness (the scene of Nin at the coffin shop includes one of the saddest pieces of dialogue you’ll ever hear), there are also moments of domestic bliss as Nin recalls his romance with his wife (Jo Koo) and his relationship with his children. Nin’s memories of his son Ming (Dylan So, an incredible debut performance) before the murders feel like him searching whether he had missed warning signs of Ming’s declining mental health.
Unlike other movie survivors of devastating trauma, Nin carries an unusually calm demeanour throughout the story. If not for the weathered sadness that he constantly carries on his face, it almost seems he is too shellshocked to realise the gravity of what happened. In a masterclass of restrained acting, Sean Lau treats Nin’s composure as merely a lid over a powder keg, always teetering on the edge of exploding. When Nin falls victim to a particularly nasty scam and finally loses it in a fit of profane rage, his distress is all the more heartbreaking.
Even with an extended running time,
Papa doesn’t seek to answer what exactly drove Ming to commit such a heinous act. Yung avoids standard movie mental illness cliches by refusing to sensationalise Ming’s mental illness or pretend to understand it. Rather than trying to rationalise an act that cannot be rationalised,
Papa chooses to focus on one man’s agonising grief transforming into forgiveness. This is especially telling in the coda, where Yung chooses to end the film with Nin and Ming as father and son rather than victim and murderer. Yung takes his time to get to his destination, but the title of the Teddy Robin song that plays in the film answers his film’s initial creative query perfectly:
This Is Love. In Yung’s world, it is love – not hate nor rage – that endures in the end.
GUEST:
Philip YUNG, director
Jo KOO, actress
Dylan SO, actor
KE Ding, music composer
Philip Yung
Philip Yung became involved in film and television production in 1998, and wrote and directed his first feature film,
Glamorous Youth, in 2009. Yung went on to write and direct
May We Chat (2013) and
Port of Call (2015), with the latter winning widespread acclaim and award nominations. 2022 saw the completion of Yung’s fourth film as director,
Where the Wind Blows, as well as the release of
The Sparring Partner, which he produced. Following
Papa, Yung produced another true-crime drama that is set for release in 2025.
FILMOGRAPHY
2009 – Glamorous Youth
2013 – May We Chat
2015 – Port of Call
2022 – Where the Wind Blows
2024 – Papa