Detective Lam (Simon Yam) is called in to find the murderer of a celebrated Hong Kong pianist.  The killer is quickly identified as a man recently released from prison who was convicted for raping and killing the pianist’s daughter, Eva (Janice Man), about 20 years ago.  The suspected killer (Nick Cheung) is obsessed with the pianist’s other daughter Zoe (Janice Man) as she is being watched and listened to.  Detective Lam works to uncover the truth and weed through all the lies.

NIGHTFALL is an interesting crime drama which has a few twists and telegraphs a few reveals.  I did predict one of the twists.  Detective Lam follows the usual trend of the obsessed detective who doesn’t pay attention enough to his teenage daughter and thinks his wife didn’t commit suicide five years ago.  NIGHTFALL also develops the story of the suspect who is also a mute and so you witness his story through what he sees and how he reacts (and not through words unless he writes them down).   Not all is well with the pianist’s family as he has his own secret as he was yelling and abusing Zoe on the night he was killed.   It is well thought out detective story which only suffers from a couple of scenes of bad CGI, but the story and actors keep this tale moving to its conclusion.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

A 48 minute making-of piece and the theatrical trailer are only extras besides the previews included on the disc.  The making-of is composed of several featurettes which could have been shortened down because the first featurettes repeat info that is later gone into too much detail in later featurettes like Nick Cheung’s six month training regimine to get into character (where Janice man’s piano lessons takes up much less time).

FINAL ANALYSIS:  If you can get past subtitles (despite there being a few lines of English in some scenes), you are in for an intriguing crime drama.

This DVD Review is (c)5-22-2013 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com