Fatal Move (2008) May 20, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Action, Thriller, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Dennis Law Cast: Simon Yam; Sammo Hung; Wu Jing; Danny Lee Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: China Star Entertainment Group
Fatal Move is the latest Hong Kong action/triad movie (though with more “triad” than “action”) focussing on the relationships between gangsters, and one particular cell’s dealings with the law and other rival gangs. Veteran action star Sammo Hung comes off an acting career highlight with SPL to play the Big Brother alongside Simon Yam’s deeply flawed Lin Ho Tung and young contender Lok Tin Hung (Wu Jing).
Yes, all three were involved in SPL, and this movie was originally conceived as a prequel to that film. When this became unfeasible, a whole new story was written, but hoping for similar success. Well, there’s one thing that will be making the US distributors rub their hands with glee – this movie already has its dumb two-word US title. No high-falutin’ philosophical gobbledegook about heavenly bodies interacting with each other requiring a tricky 30 second explanation that would make your average action film fan reach for the eject button and his Van Damme collection. That’s unless they decide to call it Kill Zone 2, that is.
The early word on this film was that it was mediocre. Well, let me say categorically that it isn’t – Fatal Move is, in fact, bloody awful. The central core, acting-wise, isn’t too bad. Simon Yam plays a gangster prone to sentimentality and has a pretty sizeable gambling problem, Sammo Hung is getting good at his new lease of life as a Triad boss, and Wu Jing still flips about like a young Yuen Biao with a Manga hairstyle.
The troubles quickly become apparent when Wu Jing starts hacking away at his foes with a sword. It promises to be another great Wu Jing action showcase, but for some reason these huge gouts of CGI blood start pumping out all over the screen. It’s true what they say: if you can tell it’s a CGI shot, then it’s not a good CGI shot - and frankly, these are terrible CGI shots. Worse, it continues this style all of the way through the movie. It’s strange, Hong Kong mastered the blood squib back in the late 60’s (see Chang Cheh’s Have Sword Will Travel for how cinematic sword wounds should look) but these pathetic efforts wouldn’t fool a seven-year-old child. Undaunted, I continued, only to find the plot convoluted, contrived and, worst of all, extremely dull. I’d lost all interest by the hour mark (barely halfway through the movie, I might add) and the film just gets increasingly irritating after that. It’s all about double-crossings, betrayal etc, but not done with an ounce of flair, and the plot lapses into incoherence on a number of occasions.
It’s a mark of desperation when, near the end, two characters duel seemingly just for the sake of it. Certainly there was no brooding antagonism or sign of unrest among the couple that I could see (although I was nodding off at this point) – one just says to the other that he didn’t see the other as the leader and they’re off. It’s like a tacked-on scene that movie executives add on when a production runs into trouble. It is, however, a great addition (CGI blood aside), and if more of these fight scenes were included it might have made the film half entertaining.
Don’t rush into Fatal Move expecting the new SPL. In fact, don’t rush into it at all. Don’t walk, either. Give it a wide birth and pretend it never happened. You’ll only be disappointed if you don’t.
Lam Suet-o-meter: Low. He plays an assistant to Inspector Liu (Danny Lee – who I had actually forgot was in the film, that’s how much of an impression he made). He’s about to be redeployed in the force. Think of him counting down the days to his retirement and you’ll understand where the character’s heading.
PTU (2003) May 18, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 2000s films , 3 commentsDirector: Johnnie To Cast: Simon Yam; Lam Suet; Ruby Wong Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milkyway Image Ltd
When Sergeant Lo (Lam Suet) loses his police pistol after a scuffle with a bunch of TsimShaTsui hoodlums one night, Sergeant Ho (Simon Yam) puts a self-imposed deadline on finding the weapon. Fearing its use in gang warfare, Ho’s team scramble to recover the weapon before dawn, or they will be forced to report the loss to their superiors. When the main suspect turns up murdered, escalating violence between rival gangs becomes inevitable.
Set over one night in TsimShaTsui, PTU (it stands for Police Tactical Unit, by the way) is one of those films that is irresistible to fans of ticking-clock thrillers that feel they’re moving in real time (even though they’re not).
The film is imbued with some very black comedy, sometimes making it feel like a Hong Kong version of After Hours, what with the urban night-time setting, bizarre events and all. One scene at the start perfectly sets up the tone and establishes the pecking order in the film’s society: lead thug Ponytail (Frank Liu) and his gang enter a cafe and sit at their preferred table, displacing a lone eater who was already there. In comes the hated sergeant Lo and chooses the same table, displacing Ponytail and his gang and making them sit elsewhere.
However, at heart PTU is a cop procedure thriller more in line with other Milky Way films such as Eye in the Sky and To’s own Breaking News. Where this film differs, though, is in the intricate plotting – sometimes making the film extremely hard to follow. There are several threads to the story, and if you’re not paying attention, you’re going to get lost – and that’s guaranteed. Several times, something happens or is discussed and seems inconsequential – only to end up being crucial to the film’s outcome.
Even though this film runs below 90 minutes, there does seem some flabbiness in the middle section, and one scene, where Ho’s unit progress stealthily up a staircase, is excruciatingly slow. PTU’s film score consists entirely of what sounds like 80’s guitar power-rock solos – and not very good ones at that. Given To’s previous works, where the music is entirely fitting and tasteful, this seems an entirely bizarre choice. Nevertheless, the urban locations are atmospheric and TsimShaTsui becomes a character in itself, with its strangely deserted streets and shuttered businesses. I’ve no idea what the district is like these days, but it was always said that it was not the kind of area tourists were recommended to be in after darkness, and this comes across very well in the film, and looks akin to the seedier, grittier areas of New York as shown in US productions.
PTU is clever, but I feel it’s perhaps too clever for its own good. There are some characters that seem superfluous, such as Maggie Shaw’s Sergeant Kat, and the pace is at times too slow. But if you’re prepared to concentrate hard there’s certainly a very intelligent film in here.
Lam Suet-o-meter: High. He’s second lead, slightly behind Simon Yam. In fact, he probably grabs more screen time in this than anything else I’ve seen him in. And that’s a lot of films…
Mad Detective (2007) April 14, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 2000s films , 2 commentsDirector: Johnnie To; Wai Ka-Fai Cast: Lau Ching-Wan; Andy On; Gordon Lam; Karen Lee Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milky Way Image Ltd
Eccentric but brilliant police detective Bun (Lau Ching-Wan) is expelled from the force when, upon his chief’s retirement, he impassively cuts off his own ear as a leaving present. But when a series of murders and robberies involving a stolen police handgun becomes too difficult to solve, Inspector Ho (Andy On) persuades Bun to return and give his insight into the case. What Bun finds is that the crimes are related, and that the killer has seven personalities that Bun can see as separate individuals.
The English language title hints at a madcap comedy, especially given the track record of Lau Ching-Wan. I haven’t really seen any of the Johnnie To/Wai Ka-Fai collaborations (I switched off the awful My Left Eye Sees Ghosts after about twenty minutes of “comic” screaming) but Mad Detective is definitely not a comedy and Lau Ching Wan is definitely not comic in this role. Indeed, at times, he looks like he’s never done comedy in his life.
Mad Detective is at the outset another detective story, albeit one that feels less noir-ish than has become fashionable. We see Bun solve a case by being thrown down a series of staircases while locked in a suitcase, then his apparent breakdown at his superior’s retirement party. Then we see two police officers trying to capture a thief. After that, it starts to get a little difficult. Well, to be honest, things simply stop making sense.
I don’t want to give too much away and spoil the “gimmick” of the film too much, but Bun has a couple of really remarkable and original abilities. The foremost is the ability to see facets of people’s personalities as separate entities, all with their own appearance (and not necessarily the same sex as the host). This is extremely confusing at first, but when the penny drops, it’s quite an exciting idea. Bun comes into contact with Chi-Wai, who has no less than seven different “facets” of his personality, and watching some of them interact with the host is interesting – for example his decision making is a bossy, confident woman, while his cowardice is a fat, nervous man (Lam Suet – Hong Kong’s Mr Prolific!). The avatar Bun sees depends on what the host is feeling. Bun also seems to be able to gain supernatural insights into the case through near-death experiences, which further clarifies what’s going on.
I’ve written before about mystery thrillers sometimes being a one-shot deal (see The Detective), but Mad Detective has so much more going for it, as well as a thought-provoking ending, that I’m sure this will stand the test of time. Indeed, it’s one of those films you want to watch again straight away so you can watch out for things you might have missed first time and with the benefit of knowledge you didn’t have on the first viewing.
Mad Detective is accessible and unpretentious, exciting and fresh. The roles are all very well acted, but Lau in particular is outstanding as the titular detective. I have to say I’ve not seen him in anything other than comedy (and usually pretty broad comedy at that), and so was a little surprised at how well he pulled it off. The direction is great and Johnny To in particular seems to be on fire at the moment. If you’re after something unusual and a little challenging, this is a must-see – and a great example, along with To’s last (complete) film, Exiled, of what Hong Kong is capable of. I’m pretty excited right now…
Lam Suet-o-meter: Low. “What, you want me to play someone’s cowardice? Hmm, OK”. Probably not one for his Hollywood resumé when he can take five minutes away from being in every Hong Kong film to write it.
The Detective (2007) January 19, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, Supernatural, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Oxide Pang Cast: Aaron Kwok; Liu Kai-Chi; Shing Fui-On Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Sil-Metropol Organization
Tam (Aaron Kwok) is a mediocre detective in the heart of the Chinese community in Thailand. One day, drinking buddy Lung (Shing Fui-On) turns up to his office and hands him a photograph of a beautiful woman and a wad of cash. Lung claims the woman is following him and will kill him over a matter that “is nothing to do with me”. Tam suspects that Lung is using him as an introduction agency and just wants to know where the beauty lives, but then people surrounding the woman start to die. Most look like suicides, but Tam is sure they are connected and believes foul play is involved. His friend, police officer Chak (Liu Kai-Chi) indulges Tam for a while, but eventually grows exasperated by his insistence that there’s more to the deaths than meet the eye.
Detective is a decent gumshoe tale told in the gritty, noir-ish style that is so popular in Hong Kong these days. Aaron Kwok is one of the few pop-stars-turned-actors I can watch, as he does tend to have some ability and doesn’t seem obsessed with looking pretty all the time. He shares a lot of screen time with Liu Kai-Chi, who is carving a nice career as a character actor, and the two have some very tangible onscreen chemistry. The film is also helped by the Thai locations, which give it a very different visual feel from the current crop of Hong Kong Noir thrillers. The supporting cast is excellent throughout (Wayne Lai pops up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him role, and Shing Fui-On is creepy as hell as Lung) and the direction is solid. Unfortunately, the film can also be seen as one big advertisement for a certain brand of telephone/camera manufacturer, but I’ve said my piece on product placement elsewhere here and I’m determined not to repeat myself.
As you have probably gathered, not everything is as it seems and the mystery is fairly compelling. It does get uncomfortably complicated than is strictly necessary at times, though, and there is a little too much padding to the story for my liking. But you do want to get to the bottom of it all and the fact that the answers don’t come easily enhances the mystery.
Detective is not so much a “whodunit” as a “what-did-they-do”, and is definitely worth seeing. I have a sneaking suspicion that once you’ve been shown all the answers you won’t want to come back to it, but it’s certainly worth the price of a rental.
Breaking News (2004) December 10, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Johnnie To Cast: Kelly Chen; Nick Cheung; Richie Ren; Hui Siu-Hung; Lam Suet Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milkyway Image (HK) Ltd
With Breaking News, we’re back in familiar Milkyway “police-procedure movie” territory. This time, it’s the media in the spotlight, and the film looks at the way news is produced, used and exploited. The film follows a group of outlaws on the run from the cops after a lethal shootout. When one of their comrades is killed in action, they rashly decide to do a heist that quicky goes badly wrong. The robbers then go into hiding in an apartment block and a siege begins, with every moment being recorded for posterity by the Hong Kong news crews.
The use of the media as a weapon comes into play when a camera crew who happen to be filming nearby capture some of the initial gunfight, including a shot of a police officer surrendering and kow-towing to the robbers. Humiliated, the police set about putting their own “spin” on things, and it’s here that Rebecca (Kelly Chen) enters as a police media relations expert. She sets up a command post outside the tower block where the robbers are holed up and gets more than she bargained for when one of the robbers, Chan Yat-Yuen (Richie Ren), makes contact with her.
The opening scene of Breaking News is simply outstanding – a long and ferocious gun battle takes place on the streets of Hong Kong with the camera moving smoothly without a single cutaway. This single shot seems to go on forever and is so impressive and dramatic it really gets the blood pumping. At the risk of sounding like one of those bite-sized blurbs used on the front of an Entertainment In Video DVD, it out-Woos Woo. From an opening like that you just know the only direction the film can go is down, and sure enough, it does.
What lets Breaking News down is the almost total lack of characterisation. No one is given much background (we don’t even know what the bandits did prior to their shootout at the start of the film) and this leads to an understandable dip in viewer interest. If we don’t care about the characters, there’s nothing to interest us aside from all the admittedly impressive visuals. A case in point is aging police officer Hoi (Hui Siu-Hung) whose uncontrollable flatulence is neither a plot point nor a source of comic relief. It’s one of the many things that are there in the film but don’t really serve any purpose. There are a couple of stifled attempts to bring in some of the old brotherhood and loyalty themes among the thieves, but it fizzles out without going anywhere.
The performances are similarly mediocre, with Nick Cheung and Richie Ren going through the motions and being largely forgettable. The presence of singing star Kelly Chen is played up, but to be honest she doesn’t really do a lot apart from sitting in the Command Centre looking good. She’s the kind of woman that makes you want to get down on your knees and thank God you’re a man, but she cannot carry a film and at times her performance is a little creaky. A saving grace is the presence of (you guessed it!) Lam Suet as the father caught up in the siege with his two young children. His interaction with the robbers is excellent and provides the only real tension that doesn’t seem forced.
Without going into details that would spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, the ending does pick up and once again it’s down to some great camera work and direction. So what you have, in essence, is a fantastic opening, a good ending, and a whole lot of gawping at Kelly Chen in between. It doesn’t seem so bad when I think of it in those terms, and at a shade under 90 minutes it’s the kind of film you probably wouldn’t mind slipping into the DVD player on a whim on a rainy afternoon.
Lam Suet-o-meter: Medium. Although not a big part, he has one of the more demanding roles and actually adds a lot to the film.
Invisible Target (2007) December 1, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Action, Thriller, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Benny Chan Cast: Nicholas Tse; Shawn Yu; Jaycee Chan; Wu Jing Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Sil Metropole Organisation Ltd
Chan Chun (Nicholas Tse) is a cop who lost his fiancée when a jewellery shop gets blown up as a result of a hit on an armoured car. Carson Fong (Shawn Yu) is another cop who is beaten and humiliated by a criminal gang. Wai King-Ho is yet another cop, this time one who has lost his brother. All three join up to bring down the Tien gang headed by Tien Yeng-Seng (Wu Jing), the gang responsible for all three officers’ circumstances.
Invisible Target starts out with a bang not unlike a Hollywood blockbuster. It serves as a plot point in that Chan Chun’s fiancée gets killed (no great loss – she doesn’t have her own voice. I don’t think I could ever love a woman who was badly dubbed) and sends him on a path of revenge. It easily brings to mind films like Die Hard and you start to worry that this is going to be yet another Hong Kong film aping Hollywood and failing miserably. While this is true to a small degree regarding the CGI, let me put your fears at rest and tell you categorically that Invisible Target is a darn good romp.
Nicholas Tse gets a lot of stick for his film work (I admit I’ve never heard a note of his music and am quite happy to keep it that way) but fair’s fair, he puts on a good show as the haunted young cop out for revenge. I must admit that Shawn [sic] Yu has previously slipped under my radar, but he also impresses as Tse’s partner by circumstance. Jaycee Chan (son of Jackie) is so earnest and serious as Wai King-Ho that his character seems to verge on parody at times, and is the least believable of the trio. In one early scene, we see him giving CPR to a foul-smelling vagrant without showing any signs of discomfort while those around him are blowing their lunch. He then modestly goes home to his grandma. He strikes you as the kind of person who wouldn’t think twice about risking his life to save a bunch of young children on a bomb-laden bus, an opinion that is reinforced later in the film where he risks his life to save a bunch of young children on a bomb-laden bus, oddly enough. Nevertheless, Wai King-Ho is the glue for the partnership of the three disparate cops. He is searching for his brother, who may or may not have gone undercover in the Tien gang. Seeing Jaycee Chan in action is an uncomfortable sensation – seeing someone who is clearly the son of Jackie Chan doing fight scenes brings a weird feeling of deja vu and brings up the inevitability of the passage of time. It sure made me feel old, anyway.
Wu Jing will be familiar to all who have seen the somewhat over-rated SPL, and many will agree he was the best thing about that movie. One great compliment to this film is that Wu Jing is still great, but he’s no longer the best (or at least the only good) thing about the project. Whereas most Hong Kong action films fail these days to entertain (for me at least) due to a number of reasons, Invisible Target succeeds, and a lot of that goes down to a more back-to-basics approach to the stuntwork and action choreography. It still goes over the top occasionally, and some of the wirework doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, but the good far outweighs the bad. In fact, after a couple of action scenes I could have sworn they were accompanied by the same tinny, lo-fi synth music that went with all those great 80’s action scenes. Upon rewinding, I found this was not the case, but it’s an interesting association.
The film – at ten minutes over two hours – is slightly too long, but paradoxically doesn’t feel bloated with extraneous material. There are some nice plot turns and interesting characters to root for and hiss at, and a couple of really standout moments. The scene where the gangster explains to Wai King-Ho, without malice or bravado, what happened to his brother and how he felt about it is one such outstanding moment.
So despite being too long and having a corny character or two, Invisible Target is still very much worth a watch, and I’m looking forward to a second viewing already.
If you’ve been reading my stuff on the more contemporary Hong Kong films both here and elsewhere, you have probably noticed that I’ve been mentioning a certain guy quite a lot. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present Lam Suet:
The reason I’ve been mentioning him is because I’m starting to feel like the man is stalking me via DVD. He’s appeared in absolutely everything I’ve watched in the past couple of months that has been made in or after 2002. Has this guy got some kind of global domination thing going or has he got a really good (or bad) agent that blags him a role in every Hong Kong film made? Sure enough, I stick Invisible Target on and bang!, less than ten minutes pass and he’s there on screen. He seems to favour playing villains, although is at home playing both henchmen and criminal masterminds. Other than appearing in all these films, I know next to nothing about him, and neither does anyone else I ask. Is there anyone who can shed some light on this extraordinarily prolific actor?
Eye in the Sky (2007) November 25, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Yau Nai-Hoi Cast: Simon Yam, Tony Leung (Ka-Fai), Kate Tsui, Lam Suet Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milkyway Image Ltd
Captain Wong (Simon Yam), head of a Hong Kong Police surveillance unit, takes on new recruit Ho (Kate Tsui). Their target is a gang of jewel thieves headed by Shan (Tony Leung Ka-Fai). Ho (nicknamed “Piggy” by Wong, much to her annoyance) learns the tricks of the trade perusing Shan through tailing “Fatboy” (Lam Suet), one of his thugs. Can they crack the gang before they strike again?
Eye in the Sky has some top-notch performances by the leads, including a paunchy Simon Yam as a fatherly mentor to the raw recruit Ho, but suffers from an under-developed script and some negligible direction. There are two distinct plot threads, following the cops and the robbers, and it often feels like the two elements don’t mesh together very well.
The surveillance tricks displayed by the team are quite good and will occasionally impress in their cleverness. The film asks some serious questions about privacy and today’s CCTV-obsessed world, and there’s one very sardonic scene when a fight between the criminal gang is broken up when one spots a woman undressing in a neighbouring apartment block. We even see, later in the movie, that the technology can cut both ways.
The supporting cast are as strong as the leads. Kate Tsui, who appears to debut here, is great and believable as the eager-to-please rookie, and we learn the Surveillance Unit’s techniques through her eyes. Also worth a mention are Maggie Shaw, who plays the tough-as-nails base controller and Lam Suet (yes, again! I swear the guy is in every movie to come out of Hong Kong these days!) as a dim-witted goon of Shan, and the Surveillance Unit’s only link with the gang.
None of the characters are given any kind of background or depth, and this creates a detached feeling that you couldn’t really care less about them most of the time. This is the film’s main drawback, and it’s hard to create real tension under these circumstances. Nevertheless, the strong performances (especially by Yam) and a few clever tricks and turns (not to mention the now-obligatory inclusion of impossible dilemmas for the protagonists) make this a still very watchable film. It’s just unlikely you’ll want to revisit it any time soon.
One other thing (and this has nothing to do with the actual movie as such) is that the dialogue is delivered in an unusually clear and manageable pace, making it great for people learning Cantonese. It seems to have less than the usual slang, slurrings and contractions, and there’s a lot of repeated dialogue to aid memory. Furthermore, the nature of the film means we get lots of descriptions of people and what they’re wearing – all essential elementary building blocks of a language.
Dog Bite Dog (2006) November 11, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 2000s films , 1 comment so farDirector: Soi Cheang Cast: Edison Chen, Sam Lee, Pei Pei Wei-Ying, Wayne Lai, Lam Suet Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Art Port Inc; Same Way Productions
The husband of a barrister pays to have a Cambodian hitman (Edison Chen) kill his wife. The killer’s getaway is thwarted by the police headed by Wai (Sam Lee) and is cornered, taking more lives before making a spectacular escape. Wai then comes after the killer with everything he’s got, even going well outside of the law to get revenge rather than justice.
Dog Bite Dog is an exceptionally squalid, gritty, dirty and distressing film. The excessive (but realistic) gore just keeps on coming and coming. No wonder this received a Cat III rating – I would seriously advise against eating while watching this film. It is also one of the bleakest, starkest and most nihilistic films I’ve seen in a long time. It doesn’t quite make The Deer Hunter look like a Three Stooges film, but it’s still pretty grim.
The cast are brilliant - including Edison Chen, believe it or not. He plays a young man raised in brutal fight camps in Cambodia who then progresses to assassination, and is man with nothing to lose. The main reason for Chen’s success here I suspect is the fact that he barely speaks, and when he does, it is in Cambodian. Against him is Sam Lee as Wai, a cop with his own problems – his father is currently in a coma and who will face accusations of drug dealing if he should wake. I only know Lee from comedic roles (including the horror comedy Bio Zombie) and I was initially sceptical of his ability to play it straight. However, he pulls it off, giving a great and natural performance. The cast is rounded out with the always watchable Wayne Lai (also from Bio Zombie, now that I think about it!), and Johnny To regulars Eddie Cheung and Lam Suet (who seems to be in just about everything I watch these days!). The only real female presence come from newcomer Pei Pei Wei-Ying, who is an abused young woman who forms an attachment with the hitman when he kills her bullying father.
The hatred of Wai for the hitman is handled in a believable manner and it is quite exciting when the two men meet for the first hour and a half of the film. One thing that did seem a little unnecessary was the inclusion of dog snarls and animal noises when the two start knocking each other about – yes, they’re like animals, I get it, stop hitting me over the head with the metaphor!
Without going into too much detail for those who are yet to see it, the film seems to wrap up in a satisfactory (if inevitably grim) way after about an hour and a half. Instead though, we get another fifteen minutes tacked on which I could have done without and do the film no favours whatsoever. The whole tone changes after this, and becomes a little predictable in my view. Also, do we really need another montage scene with a pop song playing over it? In 2006? In a film as dark as this? I do believe the director shot himself in the foot quite badly with this ill-considered coda. And when you thought the violence and gore had stopped once and for all, it’s time to get the sick bags out one final time for the climax.
There’s a reasonably good film in here, for sure, but it’s too uneven and the relentlessly dark tone makes it a bit of a hard slog to get through and I can’t honestly see myself ever wanting to sit through all that again. If you do watch Dog Bite Dog, don’t expect many chuckles – and it might be an idea to lay off the popcorn unless you want to see it again later.
Lam Suet-o-meter: Low. But here’s here and even has the name “Fat Lam”. I wonder how long it took to come up with that name?
Election (2005) November 5, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Drama, Thriller, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Johnnie To Cast: Simon Yam, Tony Leung (Ka-Fai), Wong Chung, Louis Koo, Lam Suet Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milkyway Image
My Johnnie To season continues with Election, a nasty look into the world of the Triad. The Wo Sing Triad is one of the biggest crime organisations in Hong Kong with an estimated membership of 50,000. Every two years, the leader is elected by a council of elders (or “uncles”), and this year’s contenders are Lok (Simon Yam) and Big D (Tony Leung Ka-Fai). When Big D loses the contest fair and square, he doesn’t take it well and threatens to steal the power from under his rival, something Lok will not allow. The chase is on for the century-old baton which will bestow official leadership to the head of the Wo Sing group, and possibly start a horrific civil war in the process.
Election’s tale of warring Triads, corruption, tradition, political allegories and spoon-eating psychopaths (yes, you read that right) was nominated for a whole bunch of Golden Horse awards in 2006 and even won a few (including Best Picture and Best Director). It is a very well presented film with a great acoustic guitar theme, and Johnny To again shows he’s great at shooting exteriors. The characters are mostly great and believable, but I was quite surprised when I heard that the Tony Leung that was in this film was Leung Ka-Fai and not Leung Chiu-Wai. Maybe To made a mistake and hired the wrong one and couldn’t back out, but this particular Leung overcooks it a bit in my opinion in this one. Yam is excellent as the more restrained Lok, a gangster who also has to contend with family life with his son and I particularly liked Wong Tin-Lam as Teng Wai, a very human “uncle”. Old Shaw Brothers superstar David Chiang also gets a role as an anti-Triad police officer, which surprised me – I thought he’d retired to Canada years ago!
The film does play well as a serious look at organised crime and the consequences of being in such an organisation, but it also has flashes of comedy (such as when the representatives of Lok and Big D resort to sabotaging each other’s cars) which is sometimes very dark. There are also moments of suspense and action when the ceremonial baton is unearthed and transported from the Mainland to Hong Kong. Whoever owns the baton is seen to be in control of the Society, and this means that those who want it will stop at nothing to obtain it.
Election is not an action film or a “Heroic Bloodshed” film; it is more of a crime drama, and one scene reminded me strongly of a scene from Krzysztof Keislowski’s A Short Film About Killing. It’s not all doom and gloom, but it’s not light and fluffy either. It’s also a little confusing in places, which I’m coming to understand is par for the course with a Johnnie To film. I’m thinking another viewing will probably yield more appreciation. I’m not sure if this film is meant to be a satire on the corruptive nature of democracy, but I’m pretty sure one of the lessons taught by the film is that patience is a virtue. Either that or don’t accept invitations to go fishing with someone you once screwed over.
Lam Suet-o-meter: Medium. Mr Lam is the aptly named “Big Head”. Quite a lot of exposure for this part…
The Mission (1999) October 31, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 1990s films , add a commentDirector: Johnnie To Cast: Anthony Wong, Lam Suet, Francis Ng, Jackie Lui, Roy Cheung, Simon Yam Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milkyway Image
Triad boss Lung (Eddie Ko) is targeted for assassination by persons unknown. Mid-level gangster Frank (Simon Yam) assembles a team of bodyguards to keep Lung safe and to draw out the assassin. These turn out to be Curtis (Anthony Wong), Shin (Jackie Lui), Roy (Francis Ng), Mike (Roy Cheung) and James (Lam Suet).
It seems like a simplistic plot, and in a way it is, but Johnnie To’s The Mission is a lot more involved than it first appears. Besides, the real meat of the film can’t be mentioned without causing some serious spoilers for anyone who’s never seen it.
The team of bodyguards is assembled without the viewer knowing anything about them, and this causes some confusion (well, it did with me, anyway). Their backgrounds aren’t talked about (except for Curtis, who is a hairdresser in his other life!) and until things get underway you’re left wondering what the hell’s going on too much of the time. It was obviously a deliberate ploy by To to give the characters an air of mystery, but in my opinion, he achieves this a little too well. It comes as a great relief when things eventually settle down and everything clicks into place, and I strongly suspect this will be a much more enjoyable film to watch on second viewing.
There are some great touches, such as when the gangsters are waiting around for their boss and decide to kick a crumpled ball of paper to each other to while away the time. It’s a human touch that is lacking from too many films of this nature, and makes what follows surprisingly believable.
The gunfights are also handled in a very different way from your standard “Heroic Bloodshed”. In one stand out scene, the gang seem almost bored by an attack on them. Showing the mundanity of “another day at the office” for a gang of gun-wielding killers sends shivers down the spine.
Acting throughout is outstanding, and Anthony Wong shows his usual understated flair. The supporting actors, many of who would reappear for To’s Exiled in 2006, also perform brilliantly. The only flaw to the film is a rather by-the-numbers synth score and the aforementioned difficulty of the early stages of the film.
Unfortunately, the Mei-Ah disc from Hong Kong is a travesty. For some reason, the distributor’s caption seems to have burned itself on the print and appears like a kind of watermark through the entire film. If that wasn’t enough, the picture transfer is shoddy anyway, and the sound is muffled and muddy. It actually looks like a VHS bootleg, and this kind of thing it totally unacceptable for any film made in the last ten years, let alone one as good as this. My copy also came from Hong Kong with a big dent in the cover like someone had spent a fair while sitting on it, but I realise that this might not apply to all copies of the disc…