Creative yet chaotic horror-mystery anthology short-movies interconnected with each other.
The story is vague yet funny and the atmosphere is definitely there, but with it's shortness and quick changes of characters it fails to deliver any suspense and tension. The acting is as usual in older Hongkong movies rather mediocre and often not convincing.
If you are watching this movie in german, the title is: "Troublesome Night the A-Files" it is totally mysterious why they gave it this title, no information that this is the fifth installment of this anthology movie series nor any information on what "The A-Files" are supposed to be because they are never being mentioned.
If you decide to buy this movie as the german DVD release, better be prepared for some traumatizing picture quality, it's as if they had ripped it from a very low resolution youtube video. The quality is so blurry and corny it's really distracting. But I bought it used for 69 cents so I'm not really complaining.
3 Reviews
A classic in the classical era of Hong Kong movies
jmswvxctv1 February 2023
Warning: Spoilers
First of all, this is not a real horror movie. If you want to enjoy some scare, this is not for you.
This is a classical Hong Kong-style comedy in the good old days of Hong Kong movies. It adopts the structure of a trilogy and follows a storyline of both humorous and heartwarming moments. It features the iconic surreal humor of Hong Kong comedies.
The story is basically about a group of taxi drivers and friends who have encountered all kinds of supernatural occurrences on "troublesome nights".
The central story is about the taxi driver and gambler Fat (Louis Koo), who moves to a cheap suburban apartment with his wife and young son to evade loan sharks. What he didn't expect is that the apartment has been long occupied by an evil spirit, who plays all sorts of pranks on him and his family and even makes his son sick. Fat promises to share everything he earns with the spirit in exchange for the spirit's going easy on him. The spirit agrees and helps Fat earn quick money by telling him winning lottery numbers. With the help of the spirit, Fat quickly makes a lot of money and uses that money to treat his family with a great feast and buy presents for his son. However, good times never last. One day, when Fat returns home, he finds his son wearing a clown makeup, and then his wife comes out of the bedroom, with messy hair and broken pants. She furiously questions Fat what promises he has made and tells Fat his wife has been shared. Fat angrily questions the spirit why he did that, and the spirit replies "you agreed to share with me everything you own. Your wife is what you own, and it makes sense I get a share of her. " Fat contends "I agreed to share with you what I earn, not what I own!" The spirit disagrees and promises to follow Fat wherever he moves.
To make matters even worse, Fat wakes up in the middle of the night and finds himself to be a senile old man. The spirit chuckles and tells him he has taken away half of Fat's remaining years. Fat, deeply remorseful and grieving, finally chooses to self-immolate to destroy the spirit.
This story is both funny, sad and touching. It's rare for a single movie to combine these elements, which is a unique feature of old Hong Kong comedies.
This is a classical Hong Kong-style comedy in the good old days of Hong Kong movies. It adopts the structure of a trilogy and follows a storyline of both humorous and heartwarming moments. It features the iconic surreal humor of Hong Kong comedies.
The story is basically about a group of taxi drivers and friends who have encountered all kinds of supernatural occurrences on "troublesome nights".
The central story is about the taxi driver and gambler Fat (Louis Koo), who moves to a cheap suburban apartment with his wife and young son to evade loan sharks. What he didn't expect is that the apartment has been long occupied by an evil spirit, who plays all sorts of pranks on him and his family and even makes his son sick. Fat promises to share everything he earns with the spirit in exchange for the spirit's going easy on him. The spirit agrees and helps Fat earn quick money by telling him winning lottery numbers. With the help of the spirit, Fat quickly makes a lot of money and uses that money to treat his family with a great feast and buy presents for his son. However, good times never last. One day, when Fat returns home, he finds his son wearing a clown makeup, and then his wife comes out of the bedroom, with messy hair and broken pants. She furiously questions Fat what promises he has made and tells Fat his wife has been shared. Fat angrily questions the spirit why he did that, and the spirit replies "you agreed to share with me everything you own. Your wife is what you own, and it makes sense I get a share of her. " Fat contends "I agreed to share with you what I earn, not what I own!" The spirit disagrees and promises to follow Fat wherever he moves.
To make matters even worse, Fat wakes up in the middle of the night and finds himself to be a senile old man. The spirit chuckles and tells him he has taken away half of Fat's remaining years. Fat, deeply remorseful and grieving, finally chooses to self-immolate to destroy the spirit.
This story is both funny, sad and touching. It's rare for a single movie to combine these elements, which is a unique feature of old Hong Kong comedies.
The best of the Troublesome Night movies.
OllieSuave-00713 April 2016
This is the fifth film in Hong Kong's "Troublesome Night" movie series, a collection of films whose stories are based on the supernatural and creepy ghosts. This is what I think the best film of all the Troublesome Night movies.
In the first story, Taxi Driver Cheung (Simon Lui) runs into bad luck when he encounters strange customers during his night shift including a bloodied triad leader, a mysterious old woman and a paranoid girl. The filming of this story is just perfect with its creepy tension, dry humor and suspense. The Chinese title of this movie literally means "Haunted Street," and this story represents this movie title perfectly.
In the second story, Cheung's friend and colleague, Fat (Louis Koo), moves to a new home with his wife (Amanda Lee) and son to hide from loan sharks. His new home is haunted by a demon and it won't relieve Fat of troublesome nights unless he gives him a share of everything he has. This one is full of drama and has a handful of jumpy moments. Louis Koo and Amanda Lee had great chemistry together and delivered quite a good acting performance.
The third story is about Fat's son, On (John Tang), who is employed as a security officer at a business firm. The firm stands where Fat's old hideout home once was. There, he encounters the mysterious old woman, who gave him and his co-workers quite a scare. What resulted was a mayhem of thrills and spills, from running down stairs to escaping into elevators - hilarious and action-packed. Great acting, too.
Overall, it's a great movie with a haunting music score, good acting, dry humor, perfect atmosphere, lots of ghost action and hairy-raising moments.
Grade A
In the first story, Taxi Driver Cheung (Simon Lui) runs into bad luck when he encounters strange customers during his night shift including a bloodied triad leader, a mysterious old woman and a paranoid girl. The filming of this story is just perfect with its creepy tension, dry humor and suspense. The Chinese title of this movie literally means "Haunted Street," and this story represents this movie title perfectly.
In the second story, Cheung's friend and colleague, Fat (Louis Koo), moves to a new home with his wife (Amanda Lee) and son to hide from loan sharks. His new home is haunted by a demon and it won't relieve Fat of troublesome nights unless he gives him a share of everything he has. This one is full of drama and has a handful of jumpy moments. Louis Koo and Amanda Lee had great chemistry together and delivered quite a good acting performance.
The third story is about Fat's son, On (John Tang), who is employed as a security officer at a business firm. The firm stands where Fat's old hideout home once was. There, he encounters the mysterious old woman, who gave him and his co-workers quite a scare. What resulted was a mayhem of thrills and spills, from running down stairs to escaping into elevators - hilarious and action-packed. Great acting, too.
Overall, it's a great movie with a haunting music score, good acting, dry humor, perfect atmosphere, lots of ghost action and hairy-raising moments.
Grade A
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