Cover A film still from ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Image: courtesy of Distribution Workshop)
A film still from ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Image: courtesy of Distribution Workshop)
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From ‘Fallen Angels’ to ‘Infernal Affairs’, how many cinematic tributes can you spot in Juno Mak’s latest dystopian crime epic ‘Sons of the Neon Night’?
All eyes are on Sons of the Neon Night (2025), the long-awaited addition to Hong Kong’s celebrated crime thriller canon. The film, which took singer, actor and director Juno Mak eight years to complete, unfolds in a bleak, post‑apocalyptic world: a nuclear wasteland of collapsing hospitals, perpetual snowfall and decaying city streets. At its core lies a crime family entangled in betrayal, drugs and undercover espionage.
Raised on a steady diet of Hong Kong classics and horror cinema, Mak channels his early fascination with genre filmmaking into Sons of the Neon Night—a production brimming with visual nods to his cinematic influences and references to the industry’s classics.
Here are six of the most striking references Tatler spotted.
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1. ‘Fallen Angels’ (1995)
Above A film still from ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Image: courtesy of Distribution Workshop)
A film still from ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Image: courtesy of Distribution Workshop)
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In the introduction scene of Takeshi Kaneshiro, who portrays the younger son of a drug warlord, the character awakens in a grim, dimly lit tunnel. The wide‑angled lens bending at the tunnel’s end instantly recalls Wong Kar-wai’s Fallen Angels, where Kaneshiro—who also starred in that film—and Michelle Reis speed through a similarly desolate passageway.
2. ‘Infernal Affairs’ (2002)
Above Juno Mak who plays an undercover in ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Photo: Instagram/@juno_mak)
Juno Mak who plays an undercover in ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Photo: Instagram/@juno_mak)
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When it comes to tales of double lives and moral conflict, few films define Hong Kong cinema like Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs. There, Tony Leung and Andy Lau play moles embedded within the police and triad, their loyalties and identities in constant peril. In Sons of the Neon Night, Mak takes on the role of an undercover officer whose deep infiltration pushes him to the edge of sanity, driving him to seek therapy as his blurred identities collide.
3. ‘Le Château de l’araignée’ (1957)
Above A film still from ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Image: courtesy of Distribution Workshop)
A film still from ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Image: courtesy of Distribution Workshop)
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One of the film’s most kinetic sequences—a violent ambush amid a nuclear‑polluted wasteland dusted with snow—pays homage to Akira Kurosawa’s Le Château de l’araignée (Throne of Blood). In Kurosawa’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the titular warlord meets his end under a hail of arrows in a snow‑covered fortress. Mak mirrors this imagery, partially replacing gunfire with archery, reimagining medieval tragedy through a futuristic lens.
4. ‘The Godfather’ (1972) and ‘The Godfather Part II’ (1974)
Above A film still from ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Image: courtesy of Distribution Workshop)
A film still from ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Image: courtesy of Distribution Workshop)
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Kaneshiro’s character grapples with the imminent death of his father, burdened by a crime empire rooted in Hong Kong’s drug trade. His attempt to legitimise the business parallels Michael Corleone’s struggle in The Godfather Part II. Meanwhile, his bedridden father’s insistence on reuniting with his estranged elder son reflects the Corleone family’s enduring turmoil over loyalty, redemption and dynastic honour. The echoes of Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpieces are unmistakable—crime as inheritance, family as tragedy.
5. ‘Wanted’ (2008)
Above A film still from ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Image: Instagram/@sons.of.the.neon.night)
A film still from ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Image: Instagram/@sons.of.the.neon.night)
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Veteran actress Paw Hee‑ching portrays an elderly woman who disassembles firearms and decrypts secret messages stitched into fabrics. The detail nods wittily to Timur Bekmambetov’s Wanted, in which the shadowy Fraternity communicates via codes woven into loom threads within a textile factory. It’s a sly comment on craftsmanship—and conspiracy—threaded throughout Mak’s narrative.
6. ‘Revenge: A Love Story’ (2010)
Above A film still from ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Image: courtesy of Distribution Workshop)
A film still from ‘Sons of the Neon Night’ (Image: courtesy of Distribution Workshop)
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Eagle‑eyed fans will recognise Mak’s subtle self‑reference to Revenge: A Love Story, the crime horror film by Wong Ching‑po in which Mak starred. There, the lead character’s wife, Wing, suffers a tragic fate of being raped by the police. In Sons of the Neon Night, Mak names a detective’s late wife—played in flashback—as Wing, resurrecting the character as both a memory and a motif. Her death, tied once again to violence and vengeance, becomes a haunting meta‑tribute to his earlier role.
Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
