{"id":274491,"date":"2025-11-10T16:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T16:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/274491\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T16:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T16:02:08","slug":"valley-of-the-shadow-of-death-review-priests-faith-is-pushed-to-limit-in-self-flagellating-hong-kong-fable-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/274491\/","title":{"rendered":"Valley of the Shadow of Death review \u2013 priest\u2019s faith is pushed to limit in self-flagellating Hong Kong fable | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

This sin-obsessed drama about a Hong Kong<\/a> preacher occupies the same kind of self-flagellating territory as 1970s or 80s Scorsese or Paul Schrader. Shot in a downcast, emerald-toned pallor by directors Sen Lam and Antonio Tam (making their feature debut), if nothing else Valley of the Shadow of Death makes the descent into an impossible moral quandary look fabulously attractive. As Pastor Leung (Anthony Wong) broods on a recent family tragedy, each fastidiously arrayed room of his apartment looks like a reliquary.<\/p>\n

Touted by his parishioners as a modern-day Job who preaches the importance of suffering, Leung must put his manna where his mouth is when homeless youth Ah Lok (George Au) turns up to stay at his church. Ah Lok talks about needing forgiveness, but the priest doesn\u2019t reveal what he knows: that the lad is a recently released rapist apparently responsible for the suicide of his daughter Ching (Sheena Chan) three years earlier. Struggling to rein in his emotions, Leung decides to treat the situation as a stress test of Christian principles.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Or \u2013 contradicting his claims that God, not man, is responsible for mercy \u2013 is it actually all about the pastor\u2019s own ego? Leung and Ah Lok\u2019s penance party is recounted with chastening economy, unceremoniously interrupted by the clergyman\u2019s traumatic memories; soon he has the kid marching up a Hong Kong mountainside with a crucifix. But in its second half, the film crumples under its own weight, succumbing to exposition-heavy flashbacks while the big questions are bypassed. Leung\u2019s transformation into Old Testament scourge feels there for effect, rather than as a moral lapse to pore over; in the opposite direction, his initially outraged wife\u2019s (Louisa So) dalliance with forgiveness is under-written.<\/p>\n

Johnnie To<\/a> rep player Wong brings the calvary, his darker impulses washing through his heavy-set features. But while it\u2019s good to see young film-makers drawn to such heavyweight fare, and their work dresses for the part, Lam and Tam don\u2019t completely close out their moral inquest.<\/p>\n

Valley of the Shadow of Death is in UK cinemas from 14 November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This sin-obsessed drama about a Hong Kong preacher occupies the same kind of self-flagellating territory as 1970s or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-274491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}