Mahjong Nights

Alexa thinks she is just dropping by for a routine mahjong night, but the evening flips into something darker when old grudges and hidden ties begin to surface. As alliances fracture and accusations fly, the casual game becomes a pressure cooker that exposes long-buried secrets, including a relationship that puts Alexa in the center of scandal. Tension builds around the table as friendships and family lines are tested, and each reveal forces characters to reckon with choices that have real consequences for everyone present. The film keeps the focus tight, letting a single night unspool tensions instead of stretching the story across time.

Directed by Lawrence Fajardo and created by Byron Bryant, Mahjong Nights premiered in 2021 with a Filipino cast led by Angeli Khang, Sean de Guzman, Mickey Ferriols, Jay Manalo, and Arnell Ignacio, presenting a compact, character-driven drama.

The film had a limited theatrical run and did not report widely circulated box office figures, making its exposure mainly local and festival based rather than a broad commercial presence.

Within local indie circles the movie prompted conversation about how intimate settings can expose family dysfunction and social taboos, especially around forbidden relationships. Its centerpiece mahjong sequence stands out as a tightly staged moment that critics and viewers often mention when talking about the film.

Critical response was mixed to lukewarm, reflected in a modest vote average of 5.308/10 from a small number of reviewers and viewers. Many responses praised the cast, especially Angeli Khang, for bringing emotional weight to fraught scenes, while some critics pointed to uneven pacing and a script that concentrates drama into one night at the expense of deeper character background. Overall, Mahjong Nights reads as a focused study of secrecy, betrayal, and the ways ordinary rituals can reveal extraordinary truths.