Review | Papa movie review: Lau Ching-wan shines as traumatised father in true-crime family drama

Lau’s character experiences a maelstrom of emotions after his son kills his wife and daughter in Philip Yung’s sublime human drama

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Lau Ching-wan as Nin Yuen and Lainey Hung as his daughter in a still from Papa, directed by Philip Yung. Dylan So and Jo Koo co-star. Photo: Golden Scene

Published: 5:15pm, 4 Dec 2024Updated: 7:45am, 17 Mar 2025

4/5 stars

Grief, anger, regret, worry and longing are just some of the states of mind experienced by Lau Ching-wan’s conflicted titular protagonist in Papa, a delicately sketched and at times unbearably sad portrait of a Hong Kong family destroyed by an act of unspeakable evil overnight.

Having directed the acclaimed Port of Call (2015) and produced the box office hit The Sparring Partner (2022), writer-director Philip Yung Tsz-kwong once again draws a sublime human story out of a gruesome real-life killing – in Hong Kong in 2010 – with this heart-wrenching drama.

When we first meet him, Nin Yuen (Lau), the middle-aged owner of a 24-hour cha chaan teng in Tsuen Wan, is calmly going about his everyday life amid awkward stares from acquaintances in the neighbourhood. Papa is filmed in a nearly square 4:3 aspect ratio and the audience soon comes to realise how Nin is boxed in by his predicament.

It transpires that his 15-year-old son, Ming (Dylan So Man-to), is in police custody after admitting to brutally killing his own mother, Yin (Jo Koo Cho-lam), and younger sister, Grace (Lainey Hung Lok-yee), with a chopper one ordinary evening, and Nin has been attending Ming’s court hearings from time to time.

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