Review | The Remnant movie review: Philip Keung takes on evil developers in gloomy Hong Kong drama
Philip Keung stars as a former gang boss running a laundromat who helps his neighbours facing eviction in this gloomy, engaging urban tale
3/5 stars
Philip Keung Ho-man may be one of Hong Kong’s most hard-working actors, but his few leading roles to date are often an acquired taste. It is a pleasant surprise, then, to see him find just the right mix of menace and humanity in The Remnant, a gloomy drama with an obligatory sense of hope.
Here he plays Tai, a former gang boss who, after a prison sentence for a deadly turf war, lives a quiet and solitary life in an old district as the owner of a traditional laundromat.
At once stoic and benevolent, Tai is seemingly always ready to offer minor help to his underprivileged clients in the neighbourhood.
Among his regular customers are Fa (Fish Liew Chi-yu, Keung’s co-star in Remember What I Forgot), a feisty prostitute with a playful young son (played by Kason So Tin-lok); and Lucy (Cecilia Yip Tung), a volatile alcoholic clinging to the hope that her own long-lost son will return one day.