Director – Herman Yau – 2026 – China, Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 128m
*****
A seasoned forensics expert pieces together the story behind a bus bombing as the lives and motives of those responsible is revealed in interweaving serial flashbacks – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, May 29th
A police procedural but not exactly a thriller. This starts off with an unforgettable sequence as, below us, a bus silently weaves its way through streets. And then, without warning, explodes. You’d be forgiven for thinking that, after this bravura opening, you’re in for yet another Hong Kong cops and robbers action movie. And yet, while this is undeniably a police procedural, and contains enough gore and grisly bits to earn it a BBFC 18 certificate, it’s far from your standard HK action outing. Given that Herman Yau’s previous work has included a thriller about a cannibal serial killer The Eight Immortals Restaurant – the Untold Story aka Bunman – the Untold Story (1993) and cops and robbers bomber thriller Shock Wave (2017), this is something of a surprise.
Rather, it’s a drama. If you will, a police forensics drama. The matter of fact, real time nature of the opening sequence introduces no characters whatsoever. Then the narrative switches to retired cop Leung Ho Lung (Patrick Tam Yiu Man from Raging Fire, Benny Chan, 2021; I Still Remember, Lik Ho, 2021; A Witness Out of the Blue, Fung Chi-Keung, 2019) as he is picked up from Mayflower Barbecue, the grill restaurant he runs with his wife (Kearen Pang from Vulgaria, Edmund Pang Ho-Cheung, 2012; director, Mama’s Affair, 2022), and taken to the crime scene. The explosion took place on February 14th – Valentine’s Day. Madam Chief Superintendent (Ellen Loi Oi-ling), who personally asked for him because of his forensics expertise, introduces with Senior Superintendent John Cheung (Justin Chu) who is in charge of the case. The two men know each other from way back.
Leung examines the charred bus and its victims’ remains in detail, assisted by Detective Raymond Hui (Wong Yu-nam). An arm with a wristwatch catapults us into a flashback, setting up what will become the structure of the narrative. On the one hand, a police procedural as the experienced forensics man and his assistant work through the evidence and slowly piece together the complex network of events leading up to the lethal blast; on the other, in flashback, serial interweaving tales of various characters, chiefly closeted gay Ike (Ansonbeam) and disillusioned construction worker Cheung Fai (Anson Kong) who become lovers. For various reasons, both Ike and Fai feel the world is against them and both lack self-esteem. As the narrative progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that their bleak outlook is the reason for the film’s title.
Director Yau, who also wrote the script, has an uncanny knack for sending the film off in any number of directions which ought to derail it but instead have the effect of taking it somewhere compelling you don’t expect. He introduces characters in such a way that you’re never quite sure which characters or details are going to be significant later on and which appear only to vanish from the film forever.
For instance, Ike admires the limited edition wristwatch commemorating Hide, a real life Japanese guitarist who committed suicide,worn by Andrew (Thor Lok from Call the Midwife, UK TV series, 2 eps, 2025; The Last Dance, Anselm Chan, 2024; Anita, Lok Man Leung, 2021; Raging Fire) who is introduced to him in a nightclub and later sleeps with him. That same evening at the nightclub sees an incident wherein Judy (Stephanie Che from Stuntman, Albert & Herbart Leung, 2024; Beast Cops, Gordon Chan, Dante Lam, 1998) leaves her Hermes wallet in the washroom, forgetting to put it back in her handbag. When she returns to look for it minutes later, it has gone. She stops the DJ’s music and accuses all the women present of being hookers. This scene plays in marked contrast to Mayflower Barbecue on Valentine’s night, where all the tables, his wife tells Leung on the phone, are filled with couples.
We first meet Fei when he’s the last person to give up when cops turn up to disperse a sit-in at a building site where the crew haven’t been paid. In his cramped apartment, he self-strangulates with a belt for as long as he can without passing out, attempting to beat his previous record. He chases the man to whom he loaned 10 grand who has no intention of paying him back.
Ike likes to draw, and he’s hanging around sketching Fai at the local basketball court, which is how the two first meet. He also comes out as gay to his family. He decides to move out. His mother (Bo Pui-Yue) is distressed, his father (Chan Suk-yee from Black Mask, Daniel Lee, 1996) assaults him and his sister (Rachel Leung from The Last Dance; Stuntman; A Light Never Goes Out, Anastasia Tsang, 2022; Raging Fire) helps him get out of the door. Outside, he runs into Fai who offers him a place to stay. Ike sits at the window several storeys up, contemplating jumping before the incoming Fai pulls him to safety inside. Someone else has already jumped. Ike tells Fai about pain, torture and heartache. Fai holds him, comforts him.
The three cops and their two superiors go on a bus trip re-enacting the fateful journey, looking at CCTV footage of the driver and passengers boarding the bus. 15 of the 17 bodies have so far been claimed in scenes where distress of the nearest and dearest identifying the burned bodies is apparent. Before the first stop, a loan shark repeatedly hits a defaulting client. Further on, the driver has a row with a cabbie. Various people get on and off. There is no CCTV at three stops. Leung explains that someone brought an acetylene cylinder on board, and that the explosion could be deliberate or accidental.
Later at the bombing site, Leung finds what may be a transport card, which leads the two cops to a credit card purchase, and Judy, who explains that her purse was stolen from the nightclub washroom. All the whores from that night are rounded up in the hope that this will turn up something. It does – but not you might expect. Leung runs into Andrew at the police station and sticks up for him. In the past, it turns out, Leung has shared a hotel room bed with Andrew. And got caught in a police raid. And had to explain the whole thing to his wife. All of which had dire consequences for both Leung’s personal life and his career.
Fai, meanwhile, talks to Ike about his abusive father. At a first birthday drink, a bigot picks on them for being gay and Fai gets bloodily beaten up. Fai later tells Ike, when they push me too far, a lot of people will die.
Then, the Senior Superintendent uncovers a corpse, that of Chong Chi Min (Ben Yuen from Raging Fire; Shock Wave; 2046, Wong Kar-Wai, 2004; The Eye, Oxide and Danny Pang, 2002), who was stabbed 33 times, and bought the subject’s junkie wife (Amanda Lee) in for questioning. Her son was Chong Chi Fai. Told that Fai has died, she starts, incoherently, to process grief. Amanda Lee’s brief performance here will have you on the edge of your seat. A further interview features one of the few bus explosion survivors when, covered in burns, she is finally able to be questioned in the hospital.
There’s something deeply satisfying in the way Yau weaves his numerous character-driven plot strands together. There a a number of surprise elements that this writer, for one, never saw coming. In the end, the film leaves you with a strong sense of the value of individual human life and lives, what happens when they go all too badly wrong, and some of the reasons why such things happen.
Yet, however bleak the outlook is for Ike and Fai, right up to the end they possess the optimism of lovers who are besotted with and would do anything for one another. And while some of the fellow bus passengers struggle with their own issues – one man is phoning a company to make a complaint, another has a run in with a loan shark, and the bus driver has an argument with a taxi driver en route – there are others on the bus for whom the world is an essentially good place with a bright outlook. The human condition, in a nutshell.
Herman Yau has made a unique, remarkable and extraordinary film.
We’re Nothing at All is out in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on Friday, May 29th.
Trailer: