Light the Night
華燈初上 -夜を生きる女たち-
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
The hostesses of a Japanese-style club on Taipei's Linsen North Road in the 1980s; a murder, but mostly a workplace.
Taipei, 1988. Among the bars off Linsen North Road, the Japanese-style hostess club Light is run by two women who have been friends since high school: its owner, Su Ching-yi, known as Mama Su, gentle and accomplished, and its mama-san, Lo Yu-nung, known as Rose, impulsive and fiercely loyal, who is raising a son, Tzu-wei. When a woman's body is found buried in a restricted mountain area, the detective Pan Wen-cheng and his junior partner, A-Ta, trace it to Light. The dead woman is Su.
The first season moves back through the months before the murder: the hostesses' lives, debts and men, the drugs passing through the club, and Su's affair with Chiang Han, a struggling screenwriter and Rose's former lover, which Rose discovers on her birthday. The second reaches further back. In her youth Su was raped by her mother's partner, Chu, and her mother threw her out; pregnant, she went to Rose, who persuaded her to have the baby and raised him as her own son, Tzu-wei. The season also traces the motives Su gave the people around her. Su's mother works out whose child Tzu-wei is, and a tabloid campaign makes Rose the prime suspect. Chiang Han, holding a tape recorded on the night of the murder, sets off to meet Rose and is killed on the way.
The third season fills in Rose's past: she came to Light after serving a prison sentence she took for her husband, and in prison she protected Hana, who had attacked the boyfriend who forced her into prostitution; Hana followed her to Light. On the night Su died, Hana had gone to confront her over her plan to take Tzu-wei back from Rose. When Su called her a dog, the word her old boyfriend used, Hana struck her and killed her. A-Ta, Hana's lover, disposed of the body; when Chiang Han phoned the police saying he had evidence, A-Ta took the call and killed him. A-Ta is arrested over drug dealing, Pan bluffs with a tape whose recording has been erased until the truth comes out, and Hana confesses. Rose, who has lost one closest friend to the other, makes her peace at Su's grave. The women of Light go on: Aiko decides not to reconcile with her mother, A-Chi decides to have her baby, and the party the club holds on Su's birthday is also Hana's last night at work.
Starring
Ruby Linas Rose (Lo Yu-nung)
The club's mama-san, impulsive and loyal, raising a son and suspected of killing her oldest friend.
Rose (Lo Yu-nung)’s story
Rose left an abusive father young. When her school friend Su came to her pregnant after being raped, Rose persuaded her to have the baby and raised him as her own son, Tzu-wei. Later she took a prison sentence for her husband and protected Hana inside. Now she runs Light with Su, until she learns on her birthday that Su is seeing her former lover, Chiang Han. After Su is found murdered, a tabloid campaign makes Rose the prime suspect, and Chiang Han is killed on his way to meet her with a tape from the night of the murder. At last she learns that Hana killed Su, in anger at Su's plan to take Tzu-wei from her. Rose holds Hana before she gives herself up, and makes her peace at Su's grave.
Cheryl Yangas Su Ching-yi
Light's owner, known as Mama Su, accomplished and composed, whose murder the series sets out to solve.
Su Ching-yi’s story
Su grew up the daughter of a kept woman. In her youth she was raped by her mother's partner, Chu, and her mother threw her out; pregnant, she went to her school friend Rose, who persuaded her to have the baby and raised him as her own son, Tzu-wei. Years later the two run Light together. Su takes up with Rose's former lover, Chiang Han, then leaves him for Nakamura, the Japanese client the hostess A-Chi had set her heart on, and plans to marry him and go to Japan. On her last night at the club she signs her share over to the hostesses and tells Rose, smiling, that she will find someone to protect her. She also means to take Tzu-wei back. That night Hana comes to confront her; Su calls her a dog, and Hana kills her.
Yo Yangas Pan Wen-cheng
A detective who rose through rough interrogations, investigating Su's death while a larger drug case around the club draws him in.
Rhydian Vaughanas Chiang Han
A struggling screenwriter, once Rose's lover and then Su's, who ends up holding evidence of the murder.
Esther Liuas Hana
A popular hostess who met Rose in prison and followed her to Light, devoted to her above all.
Hana’s story
Hana was tricked, then forced, into prostitution by a boyfriend who spent her earnings on another woman; when he called her a dog, she attacked him, and went to prison. There Rose protected her. Out, she lived with Rose, worked at Light and became the lover of a detective, A-Ta. On the night Su died, Hana went to confront her over her plan to take Tzu-wei from Rose. Su called her a dog, and Hana struck her and killed her. A-Ta hid the body and later killed Chiang Han to protect her. When A-Ta is arrested, Hana tells Rose the truth and goes home to her parents, where Rose finds her and holds her. Her last night at work is the club's party for Su's birthday; then she confesses.
Why it matters
Light the Night looks at a world usually filmed from the customer's side of the table: the hostesses of a Japanese-style club in late-1980s Taipei, who sell attention, conversation and the performance of intimacy, and who carry debts, children, prison records and men who have hurt them. The murder is the hook, but the series is at heart a workplace drama about women's work and the loyalties it produces, above all the friendship between Rose and Su, which is also a rivalry. Its production spent a reported NT$250 million recreating the period's streets, and the care shows in the texture of the club. Its ending turns on one insult, a woman called a dog once too often, and makes a serious point: that violence can grow from the wounds a person carries rather than from greed. What it leaves open is what loyalty is worth in a trade where affection is part of the job.