Confession of Pain | |
---|---|
Film poster
|
|
Traditional | 傷城 |
Simplified | 伤城 |
Mandarin | Shāng Chéng |
Cantonese | Seong1 Sing4 |
Directed by |
Andrew Lau Alan Mak |
Produced by | Andrew Lau Cheung Hong-tat |
Written by |
Felix Chong Alan Mak |
Starring |
Tony Leung Takeshi Kaneshiro Shu Qi Xu Jinglei |
Music by | Chan Kwong-wing |
Cinematography | Andrew Lau Lai Yiu-fai |
Edited by | Azrael Chung |
Production
company |
|
Distributed by | Media Asia Distribution |
Release date
|
|
Running time
|
110 minutes |
Country | Hong Kong |
Language | Cantonese |
Box office | HK$14,182,296 |
Confession of Pain is a 2006 Hong Kong crime drama film directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, starring Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Shu Qi and Xu Jinglei.
Police inspectors Lau Ching-hei and Yau Kin-bong arrest a rapist in 2003. When Yau returns home later, he sees that his pregnant girlfriend has committed suicide by slitting her wrists. Yau is so depressed with her death that he indulges in alcohol and turns in his police badge to work as a private investigator. He becomes obsessed with finding out the reason for his girlfriend's suicide.
Three years later, Yau discovers that his girlfriend had actually cheated on him and she was waiting at a bar for her secret lover on the night she died. Her secret lover did not show up that night because he was involved in a car accident. Yau initially thought that he will be angry with his girlfriend's lover, but he ends up taking care of the comatose man in the hospital. Yau gets over the unhappy incident and falls in love with Hung, a girl who sells beer in the same bar.
Lau's wife, Susan, is the daughter of the billionaire Chow Yuen-sing. One night, Lau and two accomplices break into his father-in-law's residence, where they kill Chow and his butler, Uncle Man. Later, Lau lures his partners-in-crime to a rundown house and murders them, after which he attempts to make the scene seem as though the two of them killed each other in a dispute over the loot. Susan is not convinced that only the two killers were involved, so she hires Yau to help her investigate further. She has also become paranoid after her father's murder, so Lau has to discreetly give her pills to calm her down and put her to sleep.
After a long investigation, which includes a few dangerous confrontations with a "suspect", Yau discovers Lau's secret and dark past. Chow Yuen-sing had murdered Lau's family members in Macau several years ago when Lau was still a boy, and he bribed the police to close the case. Lau survived, took on a new identity, and grew up in an orphanage before moving to Hong Kong, where he became a police officer. Lau seeks vengeance on Chow and he pretended to fall in love with Susan and married her. He attempts to kill Susan by drugging her and locking her inside the kitchen after turning on the gas. Susan survives, but is badly injured because there was an explosion, and ends up in hospital.
Lau visits Susan in hospital and mentally confesses the truth to her. She reveals that she already knows he tried to murder her because she was still partially conscious when he drugged her and locked her in the kitchen. She then asks him if he ever really loved her. Lau realises that, in his desire for revenge, he has destroyed a new family he created with Susan. Susan does not believe him, loses her will to live, and dies. Yau meets Lau outside the hospital and tells him his conclusion. Lau returns to Susan's room, where he feels overwhelmed by guilt and eventually commits suicide by shooting himself in the head.