A part of the fresh wave of Hong Kong cinema, Lawrence Kan’s ‘In Broad Daylight’ is a touchy love letter to investigative journalism.
This review contains spoilers.
What made my experience of watching Lawrence Kan’s In Broad Daylight special was that when I stepped out of the cinema, the news of the big lay-off happening at the LA Times just popped up on my phone.
Kay, played by Jennifer Yu, is a reporter working for the investigative sector at a Hong Kong newspaper. To expose the abuse and misconduct in residential care homes for the disabled and the elderly, Kay goes undercover as the granddaughter of Chau (David Chiang), a resident of ‘Rainbow Bridge Nursing Home’.
What differentiates In Broad Daylight from mainstream Hollywood dramas such as Spotlight and She Said is that it does not stop when the news is published. It is not an upbeat story about how investigating journalists could change the world. There is no dramatic plot twist and cheery music. The decline of traditional media and the political system in Hong Kong means that even a headline feature sometimes cannot change anything.
Lawrence’s realistic style is calm and hardly emotional. The only climax is when Kay is asked for something juicier for the headline, so she photographs and films the shower process at the care home. The elderly are forced to shower naked in the open air. Lawrence captures water smashing their bodies in slow motion with a resounding orchestral score. The fact that readers will not be impressed without something as juicy as that immerses the audience in the cutlery and hostility of Hong Kong society.
The cast offers one of the best ensemble performances of the year. Their bodies not only embody their characters but also deliver the essence of Hong Kong as a city.
In Broad Daylight is released on 19 January in the UK.
“A Senior Care Home” by Oliver Xie is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
