Night King: A New Kind of Chinese New Year Film

There’s an unlikely inspiration for the two characters at the heart of Night King (夜王) — a chipper lunar new year dramedy from director Jack Ng Wai-lun. “They come from The Abyss,” he says, referring to James Cameron’s 1989 underwater science fiction action film, in which a drilling platform foreman and his ex-wife discover alien life on the ocean floor. “I liked the characters and that relationship so much I put some of it into Foo and Madame V.” 

In Cameron’s film, the Brigmans delicately navigate their fractious relationship in order to present a united front when a dangerous military operation exploits the experimental station. Night King unfolds on the boring surface of the earth, but the seeds of Cameron’s foundational relationship are there, albeit buried beneath heaps of glitter, glitz and Rémy Martin VSOP.

It’s mid-January and Ng doesn’t look like someone spending all his days and nights in an editing suite, sprinting to the finish on a final cut of Night King in time for its Chinese New Year release. He’s relaxed, confident he’ll be done on time — which is to be expected from a man who could be considered Hong Kong’s Tom Cruise. 

“No lah!” he all but yells around a chuckle when he hears that, even if it’s not too far from the truth. The way Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick lured global audiences back to theatres and energised a struggling box office post-covid in 2022, Ng’s directorial debut, A Guilty Conscience, became Hong Kong’s biggest domestic box office hit in 2023, earning over HK$115 million, a title it held the until The Last Dance (HK$158 million) leapfrogged it in 2024. Despite the grim tallies local films posted in 2025, there have been other bright spots recently: Warriors of Future (HK$82 million), Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (HK$108 million) and last month’s Back to the Past (HK$82 million and counting) performed well. Ng has competition.

A hit in the making

Given Night King’s pedigree, the betting odds have the film as a hit. Ng reunites with Conscience star Dayo Wong Chi-wah, himself in the midst of a career resurgence in the wake of The Grand Grandmaster (2020), Table for Six (2022), notably The Last Dance, and many of Conscience’s supporting cast and crew that were eager to work together again: Louise Wong Dan-ni (Anita), Fish Liew Chi-yu (Someone Like Me), Renci Yeung Si-wing (Smashing Frank), Ho Kai-wa (Table for Six 2) and Tse Kwan-ho (True Love, For Once in My Life). All that makes for high expectations and heightened pressures. 

Is Ng feeling the flames under his feet? He actually giggles at the thought. “Of course there’s pressure,” he says. “Even if my first movie hadn’t been quite that successful, there would still be pressure for the second. More experienced directors than me have advised me to make each movie as if it were my last. And nowadays it actually could be.” More laughs.

Ng has a knack for toggling between cracking jokes and being dead serious, a skill that serves him well on Night King, one of the new breed of CNY comedies that balance wit, interpersonal drama, mature emotion and social commentary. The longtime industry pro graduated from the film and television programme of the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts in 2000 and got to work as a script supervisor, second unit director and production co-ordinator before transitioning to assistant director and writer or co-writer on action films such as Dante Lam’s Hit Team (2001), Soi Cheang’s Love Battlefield (2004), Sunny Chan and Leung Lok-man’s Cold War (2016) and Leung’s Anita (2021).

Dramedy for the new year

A Guilty Conscience pivoted on a venal lawyer who learnt the hard way that justice extends beyond just the law. In Night King (co-written by Ho Miu-kei and Jay Cheung Wan-ching) the characters learn to prioritise fairness, loyalty and relationships above dollars. It’s 2012 and the glittery — and fictional — Club EJ in Tsim Sha Tsui East is on its last legs. 

Once a prime social destination, the club stands as a testament to fading glory, just trying to muddle through from day to day and adapt to a changing world. Foon (Wong), the manager and self-proclaimed Night King, not only has to find ways to stretch EJ’s modest revenue, he has to keep his staff of beautiful women inspired enough to keep EJ’s few remaining regular customers coming back. When his ex-wife and rival Madame V (Sammi Cheng Sau-man, Lost Love) allies with the son of the club’s owner, Fung (Lo Chun-yip, Montages of a Modern Motherhood) to modernise it, Foon and his co-manager Turf (Yeung Wai-lun, Papa) step up their game to protect the girls and prevent Madame V from gutting EJ’s staff. Surprising no one, Fung has ulterior motives that compel Madame V to throw her lot in with Foon and his most trusted hostesses: Coco (Louise Wong), Mimi (Liew), Bobo (Yeung), BB (Hazel Lam Hei-tung), ChiLing (Mandy Tam Man-huen) and the mumbling Kwei-fong (Kay Choi Wai-kei).

Ng has fused together the skeletons of multiple genres — the “save the community centre/church/school” movie (think Sister Act), the heist thriller, the rom-com and the found family drama — but after the film sets a buoyant tone that feels straight out of the Jazz Age, Ng dives into thorny issues such as the failure of late stage capitalism and the need for Hongkongers to face the music and the future as it is, not as they want it to be. Foon and V’s simmering private resentments erupt partially because they exist in a shared past that wasn’t ideal for either of them, impactful as it was. 

Wong once again proved himself to be an ideal collaborator, bringing his philosophical comic sensibilities to the set and to his performance. Ng wanted to use Wong’s singular ability to embody thoughtfulness and street savvy — someone who effortlessly connects to regular people. “That’s rare in actors,” he says. “I see it in Lau Ching-wan too. And he’s a very considerate actor. His acting is far more nuanced and detailed than his stand-up comedy.” Singer-actor Cheng, cast slightly against type, was Ng’s first choice to play opposite Wong for the strong presence he needed; someone who wouldn’t be overwhelmed by Wong. “Bringing them together, of course, was also a commercial decision,” he notes.

Times are changing

They may seem like relics now but the uniquely Hong Kong clubs like EJ still existed in 2012, a year Ng chose specifically because it was when the clubs were in their last days. While doing research for the film, Ng talked with workers from mamasans to busboys, many of whom worked during the peak years of the 1980s and 90s right up to the last days when TST East’s remaining clubs were shuttered: the legendary Big Boss Generation (formerly Club BBoss) and Club Paris. Their closures represented a change in culture — and yet everyone kept on living.

“When I talked to them, they all mentioned there was no going back, that they had to face reality and move forward,” says Ng. “I thought that was just like Hong Kong right now, at this moment. That’s when I realised this would resonate with audiences. When we talk about society and politics there’s no going backwards, so we need to deal with the immediate future and the issues at hand; we need to avoid a recession. And Hong Kong people need to reinvent themselves.” Which is precisely what Foon and Madame V do by film’s end. 

It’s fitting that accepting change is an undercurrent in Night King, as the film itself represents a new kind of CNY movie as well. Gone are the days of a half-dozen star-studded hyper-comedies like the All’s Well, Ends Well series or Fat Choi Spirit. As audience tastes evolve and shift, so have concepts of what a CNY movie is. Crime-thriller The Moon Thieves featuring Cantopop band MIRROR was the big event in 2024, and Conscience came out in 2023. 

Ng speculates that this is due to fewer writers and directors being adept at comedy. “It’s easier to resonate with audiences through drama and tragedy,” he says. “Comedy demands much more life experience, and recent years have been dominated by a lot of new, young filmmakers, maybe with a little less, or different, experiences.”

Many of those young directors have expressed interest in comedy, and they may get a chance. Discussing the Hong Kong film rebound at a Filmart panel in 2023, Ng cautioned against talk of a renaissance too soon, and suggested three to five years to provide the gauge that 2025’s anaemic box office dismantled. Once again, the local filmmaking scene is defying the odds. 

“It’s not just cinema,” says Ng. “After Covid everyone expected everything to return to normal, and no one predicted this economic climate,” he says, citing the moribund economy as cinema’s biggest threat right now. “It makes investors hesitate. The result was a lot less production during 2024, which directly affected the releases of 2025.” 

Indies aside, to Ng’s mind that added up to fewer films, with lower budgets and less audience appeal. Nonetheless, “From what I hear 10 movies have already gone into development this year. Of course not all will make it to production but that’s a good sign. It’s about sentiment. Hongkongers want the industry to recover, therefore investors have an incentive.”

Pleasing the crowd

All that makes it sound as if Night King were a grave experiment with the weight of an entire industry on its shoulders. A hit would be welcome, and the film does have its barbed observations, but ultimately it’s a bright and energetic crowd-pleaser custom-built for a collective good time. Ng is quick to point out the production process was “like a party — it was fun every single day.” He specifically points to a scene improvised by Wong and Yeung as they talked business in the hostess dressing room. It involves a cucumber and a tea bag and is one of the film’s funniest moments. 

“Dayo and I were talking about how since the social movement in 2019, then Covid, the economy and then of course the [Tai Po] fire, Hongkongers have had a few crappy years,” says Ng. “So it’s important to be able to provide a moment of rest when Hongkongers can escape into the theatre for a couple hours and hopefully find some happiness. I want the audience to be happy.”

Night King opens on February 17.