Shining a light on city's neon heritage

For all the melancholy and remembrance of things lost in first-time feature director Anastasia Tsang's A Light Never Goes Out, it's not a downbeat film that will make you weep. The most sensitive among us will want to keep a few tissues handy — it is, after all, about a woman mourning the recent death of her husband. And besides, the film looks back fondly on a time in Hong Kong's past that is likely to evaporate soon from our collective memory.

With Hong Kong's streets losing a number of iconic neon signs over the past two decades, main drags like Nathan Road have lost much of their unique visual aesthetic. For generations the glow of neon light was as much a part of Hong Kong's identity as the Star Ferry or Central Market. But as Tsang and co-writer Tsoi So-man suggest in the title, the change signals an evolution as much as the end of an era.

An evolution is precisely what Mei-heung (actor-director Sylvia Chang, 2017's Love Education) finds herself going through following the death of Bill, her husband (Simon Yam, new release Cyber Heist) of many years. While cleaning out what she thinks is Bill's empty neon-sign-making workshop, Mei-heung meets Leo (relative newcomer Henick Chou), Bill's last apprentice. The pair eventually strike up a kind of friendship, thanks to their shared connection to Bill.

Mei-heung discovers Bill had a plan he never got around to completing. Despite the fact that it may involve another woman, she decides to honor his legacy and get the project finished with help from Leo. Her sudden dedication to bending neon puts stress on her already fragile relationship with her daughter Rainbow (Cecilia Choi, 2019's Beyond the Dream), who's making plans to relocate overseas with her fiance.

Tsang and Tsoi were meticulous in their selection of neon signs as a metaphor for the passage of time, and fading away of heritage and culture. Bill literally dies and takes his skills to the grave: He never really finished teaching Leo all he knew. To her credit, Tsang doesn't suggest that heritage and culture can vanish altogether. Leo may not be the master bender Bill was, but he might get there one day and make neon signage into something new.

For a debut, A Light Never Goes Out is fairly assured in its filmmaking, and Tsang clearly knew what she wanted to say about death, memory and legacy. She also got tremendous support in a crew pulled from some of the local industry's heaviest hitters, including cinematographer Leung Ming-kai (2019's Suk Suk). The soft shimmer of neon never overwhelms the screen, rather casts a dreamy haze over the story, especially at night when the neon burns brightest and contrasts with the starker, sharper edges of the day.

A Light Never Goes Out is earnest and unfussy; some would say facile. But Tsang's ace in the hole is Chang as the grieving Mei-heung, who telegraphs her struggle with an identity crisis, being no longer a wife and likely not much of a mother either in the near future, if Rainbow strikes out on her own.

In the end, like Bill's neon, Mei-heung finds a way to prevent herself from flickering out and, in her own way, defy her loss. She keeps Bill's memory vividly alive by continuing his work, reconciling herself to his death and carrying on.

The same can be said of Bill's craft. If Mei-heung can find a second life, neon probably can too.