Red Nights (2010): Hong Kong Giallo of Sadism, Fetish & Poison Pleasure

Red Nights (French title Les Nuits rouges du Bourreau de Jade) is a 2010 French–Hong Kong giallo slasher directed by Julien Carbon and Laurent Courtiaud—a thriller of erotic horror that its makers describe as a Hong Kong giallo built from mystery, sadistic murders, fetishism, and women. It screened in the Midnight Madness section of the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, placing European-Asian co-production style next to festival midnight culture.

Plot Hook: Poison Through Absolute Pleasure

Legend tells of an executioner who invented a poison that killed through absolute pleasure. The myth reappears in the present when a French woman flees to Hong Kong after killing her lover and stealing an old artifact that holds the poison. She crosses paths with a Taiwanese mobster and an epicurean, sadistic woman-killer—all of them hunting the same precious toxin. Murder, fetish atmosphere, and treasure-hunt logic braid into the red-night palette the title promises.

Why Kink-Media Readers Note It

Unlike club documentaries or explicit BDSM instruction films, Red Nights packages sadism and fetish styling inside giallo genre machinery: stylish violence, erotic dread, and a MacGuffin that literalizes “death by pleasure.” Festival placement under Midnight Madness telegraphed that tone. Credits and further cast detail remain available via IMDb and archival TIFF programme notes by Colin Geddes (2010). On a BDSM-in-film shelf it belongs with art-horror titles that aestheticize cruelty and fetish objects without claiming to be community education—Hong Kong streets, French co-direction, jade-executioner mythology, and a poison that turns climax into kill.