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.
