"The Longest Nite" is a deliriously entertaining Hong Kong crime flick with style to spare. It also has an unexpected dash of humour to offset the grim proceedings.

Crooked cop Sam (played by the usual charming "Little Tony", Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) is attempting to broker a meeting between Triad figures in Macau. He is a brutal figure, shattering a man's hands with a sauce bottle in a restaurant, and doling out gruesome torture to an alcoholic hostess played by Maggie Siu.

A suspicious, menacing bald man, Tony (played by Lau Ching Wan) appears out of the blue and becomes an ever-present thorn in Sam's side. Who is he? And what does he want? Well, I'm going to level with you, reader: I don't really know. Presumably the movie revealed that at some point, but I don't think it's really important. This movie was riveting, entertaining from start to finish, with many humorous and nasty touches. Lau Ching Wan was perfect as the shadowy bald man, and although the camera loves little Tony, I think he may have been a bit miscast as the crooked cop.

I didn't understand every aspect of the plot but I'm not sure you're meant to. I mean, have you ever understood every detail of a Hong Kong crime flick?

Patrick Yau is a great and talented director. I haven't seen anything else by him yet than this, THE LONGEST NITE (1997),but his other works include The Odd One Dies and Expect the Unexpected, which have also been hailed by HK fanatics and specialists. However, THE LONGEST NITE alone shows the director's talent and this is easily among the most interesting and memorable HK films of the late 90's.

Tony Leung and Lau Ching Wan are the two leads here. Tony is a wonderful actor with smooth and kind face, yet his character here is anything but nice or kind. He plays a rawly violent and corrupted policeman who solves some mysterious triad war in which he is himself somehow related, too. Also a mysterious bald headed stranger soon arrives in Macau (Lau),and soon these two men are against each other and time. It all happens during one night filled with depravity, violence and seemingly no hope for a better tomorrow..

I think the plot and story is very hard to follow after one viewing and the less you are experienced with English (subtitles),the more times you will have to see this film in order to understand the whole plot and its turns. I have seen this twice now and still there are elements which I cannot yet explain, but they're not so important as the things this film gives and has are already visible to me.

The film lacks every imaginable bit of the usual lightening humor and slapstick attempts. The film is as serious and gritty as they come, and the film is produced by the legendary Johnnie To, a director/producer specialized in this kind of gritty and dark stuff in Hong Kong cinema. One of his most incredible achievements is a triad thriller The Big Heat (1988) starring Waise Lee, which is among my personal all time Hong Kong favourites in its insanity and over-the-top dark and infernal atmosphere. Johnnie has done many other great films, too, which include The Heroic Trio (1993) and its sequel, both directed with the choreography genius Ching Siu Tung.

THE LONGEST NITE features a nice soundtrack which is little like Giorgio Moroder's music in De Palma's Scarface (1983),and it adds very well to the atmosphere of the film. But the strongest element in THE LONGEST NITE is the photography and lightning, which are often very gorgeous in the hands of a talented Hong Kong director. Films like Dr. Lamb (Danny Lee, 1992),City on Fire (Ringo Lam, 1986) or Red to Kill (Billy Tang, 1993) would not be as powerful as they are now without the usage of haunting colors like blue which bath in fog and mist, usually the light, or should I say darkness, coming through windows. The final gun battle between the two protagonists in THE LONGEST NITE is among the greatest scenes I've seen in Hong Kong cinema in recent times, and it features exactly this usage of blue nearly as powerfully as possible.

The violence and brutal world the film is set in is often off putting but never gratuitously graphic and exploitative. There's no blood spraying all over the walls, but realistic aftermath when someone decides to hurt some other. Violence never pays in this film as it doesn't in real life either. THE LONGEST NITE doesn't glorify violence at all, it just depicts people who are so desperate and weak they use it very often, and so the film (and ending) is pretty pessimistic, too. Unlike in many Hollywood action no-brainers, like the Steven Seagal films, in THE LONGEST NITE wickedness and violence always has its consequences and results.

THE LONGEST NITE is very welcome addition to the gritty triad films genre of the Hong Kong cinema and due to its great and believable performances and characters, gorgeous visuals and overall honesty, it will last many viewing times without losing its power and impact. I gladly give this 8/10 and maybe my rating will rise after subsequent viewings.

This is a bleak dark nasty ugly film of the sort Hong Kong no longer makes. Tony Leung plays a corrupt cop who is trying to make a peace between two of three powerful crime lords on Macau. Things are going from bad to worse as word hits the street of a contract on one of the crime bosses. A tall bald headed fellow is wandering about and seems intent on collecting the cash reward no one knows who is offering. Worse for Leung is the fact that someone seems intent on making his life miserable beginning with a naked dead man in his apartment. Things only go down hill from there as Leung tries to unravel the plot and stay out of increasing trouble.

A fever dream of foul things this was started by one director, Patrick Yau, who shot five scenes before hitting a creative brick wall and then was finished by the producers Wai Ka-fai and Johnnie To who stumbled around trying to stitch it together. The result is a really violent, bloody affair with no hope and no light. Much of the film operates in a seeming dream logic as it becomes clear that a greater power is operating just beyond Leung's view. Its all comes together in the end but until then its like being trapped in blood soaked nightmare with an occasional severed head. I'm kind of at a loss for words, this movie operates on a level somewhere underneath the surface and sends out shock waves.

I really like the film but at the same time find it rather disturbing. Its the sort of bleak rough edged crime drama that Hong Kong excelled at in the 1980's and 1990's but which it seems to have stopped making.

Recommended if you can find yourself a copy and like rough edged mind warping crime dramas.