Courtroom drama A Guilty Conscience is officially the highest-grossing Hong Kong film ever! What’s more, it become so in record time, breaking the record a mere 20 days since its January 21 release date. Now we get to see what all the fuss is about, as A Guilty Conscience is in UK cinemas now.
Directed by veteran screenwriter Wai-Lun Ng, who makes his feature directing debut here, A Guilty Conscience puts us in the shoes of arrogant defence attorney Adrian Lam (Dayo Wong Tze-wah), whose prickly ways put him at odds with his bosses and colleagues. He does have a keen sense of justice, though, so when a client, Jolene Tsang (Louise Wong Dan-nei), is sent to prison for the mysterious death of her seven-year-old daughter, he smells a rat.
Teaming up with rookie counsel Evelyn Fong (Renci Yeung Sz-wing) and junior attorney Kam Yuen Shan (Tse Kwan Ho) he starts digging into the case, when he soon finds disturbing connections to a wealthy, influential family headed by real estate moguls Victoria (Fish Liew) and Desmond Chung (Adam Pak). It looks like Lam’s instincts are right on the money…
A Guilty Conscience plays like a John Grisham thriller a la The Client or A Time to Kill, but filtered through Hong Kong’s specific cultural lens. Best known for his comedic chops, Lam brings some welcome, self-effacing humour to what could have been a rather grim tale, but is all business when it comes to delivering the drama.
It’s interesting to note that while we in the West bemoan the venerable adult-oriented drama being largely relegated to streaming platforms, countries like China and South Korea still hunger for this kind of morality play, and their production houses churn them out regularly to meet that demand. Film fans yearning for something a little more highbrow than the latest Marvel blockbuster owe it to themselves to check this one out—A Guilty Conscience is a gripping old school legal drama that packs a punch.
