Nightfall (2012)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Teaser Trailer Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Eastern Eye x 4
Rating
Year Of Production	2012
Running Time	103:12
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Chow Hin Yeung
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Simon Yam Nick Cheung Janice Man Michael Wong Kay Tse
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	Shigeru Umebayashi

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Cantonese dts 5.1 Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, both opening and closing credits

     Inspector George Lam (Simon Yam) of the Hong Kong Police, whose wife committed suicide 5 years ago leaving him with a teenage daughter to bring up, is unable to let cold cases go, keeping files and pictures of the victims on his walls at home. Twenty years ago Eugene Wong (Nick Cheung) was gaoled for the rape and murder of 19 year old Eva Tsui. Now paroled, he watches the household of the Tsui family, including 20 year old daughter Zoe (Janice Man) who bears an uncanny resemblance to the murdered Eva. Zoe’s father Han (Michael Wong) is very possessive of his daughter, and is capable of striking her in a rage if she receives phone calls from boys. When Han’s mutilated and disfigured body is found in the sea, Eugene becomes the prime suspect and Inspector Lam begins to think that the two crimes, 20 years apart, are linked. They are indeed linked, but in ways the police do not even start to suspect.

     Nightfall (Daai deoi bou) is the second film of writer / director Chow Hin Yeung and his co-writer To Chi-long following the bizarre and off the wall, but very entertaining, Murderer (2009). Perhaps in response to some of the criticism of the twists in Murderer, Nightfall is rather more straightforward than Murderer but still delivers a number of twists, a fractured narrative, some brutal and confronting violence and some excellent acting from Simon Yam and especially Nick Cheung, whose character is mute following a failed suicide attempt in gaol. As such Cheung has to make do with his deep and chilly stare and his body language and he is very effective, not to say frightening. The film also looks great, using beautiful widescreen photography of Hong Kong to good effect, courtesy of veteran cinematographer Ardy Lam, whose credits over the years include working with Hong Kong greats John Woo (Bullet in the Head(1990)) and Tsui Hark (Once Upon a Time In China (1991)). Nightfall is also blessed by an impressive score by prolific Japanese composer Shigeru Umebayashi, responsible for a diverse range of film scores including House of Flying Daggers (2004) and Trishna (2011). For a director in only his second film Chow has certainly managed to amass some great talent behind the scenes.

     Nightfall is more narratively sedate than Murderer, but this does not mean that Nightfall is straightforward; it’s not. Perhaps also in response to reaction to their first film, Nightfall also makes sure that it ties up all the loose ends, perhaps too comprehensively, leaving nothing to the imagination of the audience. However, this is a minor issue: Nightfall is an intriguing, intelligent and beautiful looking film, a psychological, character driven thriller with great acting from Simon Yam and Nick Cheung.

Video

     Nightfall is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the original theatrical ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced.

     This is a beautiful looking print. Detail is good and sharp, but the highlight is the colour palate that is deep and rich with blues and reds particularly vibrant. Pause at 9:28 for a beautiful scene of Hong Kong for example. Blacks and shadow detail are fine, brightness and contrast consistent.

     Other than some minor aliasing on surfaces such as grills, and some ghosting with motion, artefacts were absent. There was a fair amount of shimmering with the end titles however.

     The layer change at 62:35 resulted in a slight pause.

     English subtitles are in an easy to read yellow font. They seemed to be timely and I did not notice any spelling or grammatical errors. The only issue I had was that the subtitles remained on when English sentences were spoken. There were a few, and the subtitles were distracting

     A very good print, without issues.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is a choice of either Cantonese DTS at 1509 Kbps or Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 Kbps. I listened to the DTS, and sampled the Dolby Digital. Both were good, although the DTS seemed crisper with better separation.

     Dialogue was clear and centred. The surrounds were a revelation right from the first scene in the shower block: the thud of the body hits were loud and reverberated, the music and effects fled around the speakers and the water falling from the showers filled the sound stage. A lot of the film was not action oriented, and did not require the same aggressive sound design, but the surrounds remained active with effects and music.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Teaser Trailer (1:03)

Theatrical Trailer (2:00)

Eastern Eye Trailers

     Trailers for Headshot (2:08), Motorway (1:33), Life Without Principle (2:24), and Outrage (2:05).

     There does not seem to be a Region 2 UK version of Nightfall at present, and the Region 1 US is not due for release until 21/5/2013. The Region 3 HK version includes the teaser and trailer we get, but adds a “making of”. However, the aspect ratio is listed as being 1.78:1, not the correct 2.35:1. The Region A HK Blu-ray contains the same extras as the HK DVD but seems to have the correct 2.35:1.

     For DVD our release seems a good choice.

     Nightfall is an intriguing, intelligent and beautiful looking film; a psychological, character driven thriller with some interesting twists and great acting by Simon Yam and Nick Cheung.

     The video and audio are very good. Trailers are the only extra.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall