General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

In Broad Daylight

In Broad Daylight (白日之下) is a 2023 Hong Kong drama film directed and co-written by Lawrence Kan (簡君晋), produced by Derek Yee (爾冬陞), and based on real cases of abuse in residential care homes for the disabled. A news organization's investigative unit receives a tip about mistreatment of residents at the Rainbow Bridge Care Home, and the reporter Kay (凌曉琪) goes undercover as a resident's granddaughter to expose what happens there.¹^•² The film opened in Hong Kong on 2 November 2023 and in mainland China on 12 April 2024.³

Key fact	Detail
Director / producer	Lawrence Kan (簡君晋), his second feature; produced by Derek Yee¹^•⁴
Screenwriters	Lawrence Kan with Li Cheuk Fung (李卓風) and Tong Chui Ping (唐翠萍)⁵
Principal cast	Jennifer Yu (余香凝) as reporter Kay, Bowie Lam (林保怡) as the home's director, David Chiang (姜大衞), Rachel Leung (梁雍婷), Chung-Hang Leung (梁仲恆)¹
Release	Hong Kong 2 November 2023; mainland China 12 April 2024; 106 minutes, Cantonese³
Source material	The 2015 Cambridge Nursing Home abuse incident and the 2016 Kang Chiao House case, in which the director was suspected of sexually assaulting residents and six residents died within about half a year⁶
Hong Kong box office	HK$21,865,834 from 347,654 admissions in 2023, ranking 5th among local first-run films that year⁷
Major awards	16 nominations at the 42nd Hong Kong Film Awards, winning Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress⁸

Spoilers

Story and real events

The film follows Kay, a veteran investigative journalist known for undercover work, who poses as the granddaughter of a resident (played by David Chiang) of the private Rainbow Bridge Care Home. Inside, she documents abusive practices by the home's administration and eventually implicates the home's director (Bowie Lam) in a public legal battle.¹^•⁹

The screenplay draws on a series of real Hong Kong care-home cases from 2014 to 2016. A Hong Kong film commentary identifies two principal sources: the 2015 Cambridge Nursing Home (劍橋護老院) abuse of residents, including elderly residents being bathed in the open air, and the 2016 Kang Chiao House (康橋之家) case, in which the home's former director was suspected of sexually assaulting a resident with intellectual disabilities and six residents died within about half a year.⁶ A mainland Chinese review describes the film as blending four real incidents from three care institutions, including poor food hygiene, the open-air bathing of elderly residents, the six unexplained deaths in eight months, and the assault of an intellectually disabled girl by a former care-home director.¹⁰

Director Lawrence Kan said the original news reports left a lasting impression on him and prompted him to research the story, including conversations with the reporters who had covered the cases.⁸

Production

The project took roughly five to six years to reach the screen. As a social-realist subject it was difficult to finance, and Kan credited producer Derek Yee and the One Cool company founded by Louis Koo with helping to raise the money. Yee, whose own directorial debut The Lunatics (癫佬正传) treated a similar subject, advised on the script without forcing his own direction.⁸ The Festival des 3 Continents notes that In Broad Daylight is reminiscent of The Lunatics, and that Jennifer Yu's journalist character recalls Deanie Yip's social-worker role in that earlier film.⁴

Kan also chose not to give the film a happy ending. He told the Beijing News that this was not a deliberately engineered anticlimax but a reflection of how things are in reality.⁸

Release and reception

The film circulated on the festival circuit before its Hong Kong release, including the London East Asia Film Festival, the Hong Kong International Film Festival's program in Montreal, and the World Focus section of the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival.¹¹^•¹² It was also the opening film of the 20th Hong Kong Asian Film Festival and received five Golden Horse Award nominations, including Best Leading Actress for Jennifer Yu.¹³

In Hong Kong the film earned about HK$3.4 million in its first four days and was the daily box-office champion for three consecutive days from 3 to 5 November 2023.¹⁴ It finished 2023 with HK$21,865,834 from 347,654 admissions, fifth among Hong Kong first-run local films that year.⁷

Awards

At the 42nd Hong Kong Film Awards in April 2024 the film received 16 nominations and won three acting prizes: Best Actress for Jennifer Yu, Best Supporting Actor for David Chiang, and Best Supporting Actress for Rachel Leung, making it the biggest winner among the performance awards that year.⁸^•¹⁵^•¹⁶ Rachel Leung also won Best Supporting Actress at the 17th Asian Film Awards, and Jennifer Yu won Best Actress from both the Hong Kong Film Critics Society and the Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild.² Bowie Lam was additionally named Best Supporting Actor at China's Golden Kite Awards.¹⁵

Place in Hong Kong cinema

Commentators have read the film as part of a recent current of Hong Kong social-realist filmmaking concerned with ordinary people, alongside works such as A Simple Life in Ann Hui's filmography.⁴^•¹⁰ A review in The Asian Cut compared its surface premise to Spotlight, while noting that it focuses more on the emotions carried by the events than on the mechanics of journalistic investigation, and that its treatment of journalism carries particular weight in Hong Kong's current political climate.⁹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2023 and 2024 › Titles H to N

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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