WILD SEARCH

WILD SEARCH
Hongkong, 1989

Directed by Ringo Lam

Chow Yun Fat
Cherie Chung

Ku Feng
Roy Cheung


Chow Yun Fat plays Hong Kong Police Sergeant Lau Chun Pong, nicknamed "Mew Mew". Mew Mew is a man on the ragged edge. He is, we learn a widower whose wife and child were killed by a robber, he is a man in a downward spiral. He seems numb to life that swirls around him--when he is first introduced, he's sitting in a car, chain smoking cigarettes and drinking from his flask, watching the drama of street life before him as he awaits the arrival of an informan. His expression is disinterested and weary--he pursues the arms dealers who are his prey with a curious detachment. He is going through the motions of being a policeman, yet one senses, that it is only his work that is keeping him going at all. He still commands the loyalty, respect and affection of his colleagues, including his supervisor. He's a good cop and a good man who has lost his way due to overwhelming grief.

Cherie Chung plays the sister of the murdered arms dealer--whose death sets the plot in motion. Chung's Cher Lee is a woman of quiet strength and dignity. Life has not been kind to her. Her husband betrayed her, leading a secret second life with a woman from the Chinese interior, fathering a son. During their marriage he berated her for being clumsy and stupid. Rather than continuing to suffer the humiliation, Cher has divorced him and lives quietly with her father, working along side him in the village fields, harvesting bamboo.

Her sister's death brings Mew Mew--pursuing the arms case--into her life in a dramatic fashion. Their relationship is at first contentious as he suspects her and her father of complicity in the dead sister's arms dealing. The relationship begins to transform as Mew Mew aids Cher in tracking down the father of her sister's illegitimate 4 year old daughter--who turns out to be the kingpin of the arms smuggling operation that the police are investigating.

Their bond is forged as the arms case heats up--thrown into each others company, facing adversity and danger, these two wounded souls begin to blossom. A tentative, tender relationship grows and is tested time and again through Mew Mew's suspension from the force (a result of threatening the powerful, rich arms kingpin); a domestic drama within Cher's family concerning her young niece and her father: the complication of Cher's ex-husband reentering the picture determined to win his wife back; and an assassination attempt on Mew Mew's life by one of the kingpin's henchman--the murderer of Cher's sister.

To be sure, these are restrained performances, yet one only has to watch Cherie Chung as Cher as she sits at the bedside of the wounded Mew Mew, not knowing if he will live or die, her worry, longing and love playing over her features, to appreciate her work in this film. Chow's Mew Mew may lack the flash and dazzle of some of his bullet ballet roles, but the transformation from grief stricken widower to a man being brought back to life by love is fascinating to watch. His scenes with the young actress playing the daughter of the murdered woman are especially touching and heartwarming.

Action fans and bullet ballet junkies will be disappointed by this film. But those of us who enjoy character driven drama will find much to enjoy in Wild Search.

EXILED

EXILED

Hongkong 2006

Drama/Action

Executive Producer: John Chong

Producer: Johnnie To

Screenplay: Yip Tin-shing, Szeto Kam-yuen

Cinematographer: Cheng Siu-keung

Editor: David Richardson

Production Designer: Tony Yu

Sound: May Mok, Charlie Lo

Music: Guy Zerafa

Principal Cast:

Francis Ng

Anthony Wong

Nick Cheung

Simon Yam

Josie Ho

Roy Cheung

Lam Suet

Directed by: Johnnie To

Bullet-ridden and star-studded, Exiled - the latest action-packed film from Johnnie To - sheds a dusky light on the melancholic end of an era. The 1999 turnover of the Portuguese colony of Macau to China is investigated here through the unique rites of passage of a group of cold-blooded hit men as they wonder what the future has in store for them, try to make quick money or simply hope to retire.

Gathering some of his regular actors - including Roy Cheung, Lam Suet and Simon Yam - and pairing them with Anthony Wong and Francis Ng (from the Infernal Affairs films), To creates an exquisite ensemble piece in which the borders between tragedy and deadpan comedy blur, resulting in a highly entertaining, black-comic thrill.

Directing the viewer to understand and sympathize with each of the characters, To spins the tale of the traitor Wo (Nick Cheung), who has decided to quit his criminal life and wants to live quietly with his family. His story is tied to that of the other hit men - and former buddies - who have come to Macau to kill him. Resolved to take him down, but also willing to negotiate a sort of gentlemen's agreement, they grant Wo another day of life and help him find one last job to provide for his future widow and newborn baby.

Enigmatic yet visually eloquent, Exiled seems to follow a fleeting code of honour in its compelling articulation of situations and moods. As various contract killers crop up on the small island to stalk each other, To's slow-burning storytelling builds a strong narrative tension and unveils the inner rhythm of his characters' emotions. The film's aesthetic mixes gangster iconography, languid atmospheres and stylized Macau sets with superb cinematography, recalling the baroque intensity of Caravaggio's paintings. The blazing trajectories of bullets cross paths with the men's desires and palpable anxieties about their uncertain futures in this brilliantly choreographed ballet.

LEE ROCK

LEE ROCK

Hongkong 1991

Directed by Lawrence Lau Kwok-Cheung

Andy Lau
Cheung Man
Chingmy Yau
Kwan Hoi-San
Paul Chun-Pui
Ng Man-Tat

How do you remain honest in a fundamentally dishonest system? That's the question raised in Lawrence Lau's Lee Rock, a critically acclaimed 1991 docudrama that details the meteoric rise of its title character from humble beat cop to mega-powerful chief of police. In an HKFA-nominated performance, Andy Lau stars as Lee Rock, a barely literate street urchin who snags a job as a policeman for one simple reason: to put food on the table. At the academy, he learns there's more to being a police officer than he first realized. In a private talk with Lee's graduating class, a respected instructor (Eddy Ko in a cameo) gives his students a final piece of advice: the point of the game isn't to protect and serve, but to move your way up the chain of command. Sadly, this feat requires a lot of shady behavior, including both the giving and receiving of bribes. Not to participate in such actions, Ko's character tells them, is to condemn yourself to a pauper's grave.

At least initially, Lee Rock sticks to his ideals and declines every kickback that comes his way. And while his refusal to take bribes earns him the contempt of his fellow officers, it also garners him the respect and loyalty of Lardo (Ng Man-Tat), a street hawker who soon becomes Lee's trusted confidante. We also meet Rose (Chingmy Yau), the pinnacle of wide-eyed, pigtailed innocence, who loves Lee deeply, but has to keep it a secret from her authoritarian father (Wong Yat-Fei). When her dad learns of the relationship with Lee, he's less than thrilled with the fact that Rose's boyfriend is a policeman. While Rose's father despises cops for their corruption, he actually considers Lee to be even worse since all the honesty in the world won't put a roof over his daughter's head. Rose's father forbids a marriage, and soon enough, Rose is sent packing to a faraway place. A heartbroken Lee uses his police connections to search for her, but alas, has no luck in finding his lost love.

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Eventually, the kindly—and only marginally corrupt—Sgt. Chan (Kwan Hoi-San) takes Lee under his protective wing, telling his young pupil, "All great men started small." Taking Chan's advice to heart, Lee vows to rise up the ranks of the department to become chief of police. The only obstacle in his way is Sgt. Ngan Tung (Paul Chun Pui), a morally bankrupt politico who will stop at nothing to destroy Lee's career. Just as Lee's job prospects begin to improve, things heat up in the romance department when he meets a knockout by the name of Grace (played with an alluring brashness by a poodle-skirted Cheung Man). The spoiled daughter of a big-time gangster, Grace provides a romantic entanglement for Lee that is virtually the polar opposite of his situation with Rose. Even so, the issue of money arises with Grace's father as well, but thankfully, this time Lee passes the test. Marriage, promotions, political maneuverings, riots, a hostage situation, and a surprise cliffhanger ending are just a sample of the events that unfold in this thoroughly satisfying motion picture.

Proving worthy of his Best Actor nomination, Andy Lau excels in the role of Lee Rock, playing him as the idealistic country bumpkin in the early portions of the film, yet modifying his portrayal ever so minutely as the character develops over time. Somehow, Lau is able to control his smarminess level, letting it slowly leak to the surface in tandem with Lee Rock's ascension to power. Similarly, the performances of Lau's fellow cast members are equally strong with too many fine turns to single out in the space of a single review.

Like life, Lee Rock unfolds in a series of random events, and it's this seeming absence of a hackneyed formula (save for the cliffhanger) that adds to the illusion of realism. And though the film's lack of trademark over-the-top action might disappoint viewers whose interest in Hong Kong films depends solely on the number of slow-motion gun battles, I found Lee Rock's relatively action-free narrative to be a refreshing departure from the mindless "Let's blow stuff up!" mentality that typifies many a cops 'n robbers flick. Underneath the romance and the drama, it's the ethical quandaries that Lee faces that provide the backbone of the film. It's a Catch-22: you can't clean up the streets as simple beat cop, but you can't move up the ladder unless you get your hands dirty. Unfortunately, it's only by taking kickbacks that Lee Rock is able to get ahead in the world. And consequently, the reachable goal here is not to become a force of good, but instead to be the lesser of two evils. It's the only way that Lee Rock can make some effective changes within a system that runs on corruption. Whether he ultimately becomes the solution or just another part of the problem remains to be seen; that answer lies in the sequel.

11th Annual Hong Kong Film Awards

• Winner - Best Supporting Actor (Kwan Hoi-San)

• Nomination - Best Picture

• Nomination - Best Actor (Andy Lau Tak-Wah)

• Nomination - Best Supporting Actress (Chingmy Yau Suk-Ching)

• Nomination - Best Screenplay (Chan Man-Keung)

• Nomination - Best Cinematography (Lee Chi-Hang, Andrew Lau)

• Nomination - Best Art Direction (Mok Siu-Kei)

CITY ON FIRE

CITY ON FIRE

Hongkong 1987

Directed by Ringo Lam

Chow Yun Fat
Danny Lee
Carrie Ng

Sun Yeh

What's more important, loyalty or justice? That's the dilemma facing undercover cop Ko Chow (Chow Yun-Fat) in Ringo Lam's excellent crime drama City on Fire. The film is a definite must see for HK enthusiasts, if for no other reason than to witness what a Ringo Lam movie was like before he became Jean Claude Van Damme's director of choice.

Like Donnie Brasco and other films of its kind, City on Fire explores the internal ethical struggle for a policeman who get too close to his prey. The plot: after a fellow cop is knifed to death in the streets, detective Ko Chow is put on the trail of some jewel thieves by his world-weary superior, Inspector Lau (Sun Yeuh). Chow, however, has deep reservations about the assignment. "I fulfill my duties?" Chow complains, "But I betray my friends!" Despite his protests, Chow agrees to the job and attempts to befriend head crook Lee Fu (Danny Lee). After a few tense situations, Chow is eventually accepted into the Fu's confidence and asked to join in on the crew's next big score. As the two strike up a friendship, Chow's personal ethics are put to the test as he finds himself genuinely liking Fu, the very man he's supposed to arrest. Later, the climactic jewelry heist goes terribly wrong with bullets flying everywhere and bodies littering the streets. In the end, Chow is forced to make a definitive, but not surprising, decision on where his loyalties reside…with fatal results.

There have been many comparison made between this film and Tarantino's "re-imagining" (An unfortunate buzzword that emerged after Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes debacle. But I digress). Though similar in theme, City on Fire and Reservoir Dogs are dramatically different in execution. Whereas Quentin Tarantino's debut film had a sleek look and crackling dialogue, City on Fire does not—and that's not necessarily a criticism of Lam's flick. Tarantino's world is a kind of hyper-reality in which common thugs can riff on pop culture; Ringo Lam's domain seems a tad bit more realistic. The criminal element depicted in City on Fire operates in a grim, gritty underworld that's only shred of romanticism lies in the immutable loyalty between brothers. Same idea, different methods—but both pretty damn cool movies.

7th Annual Hong Kong Film Awards

• Winner - Best Director (Ringo Lam Ling-Tung)

• Winner - Best Actor (Chow Yun-Fat)

• Nomination - Best Picture

• Nomination - Best Actor (Danny Lee Sau-Yin)

• Nomination - Best Supporting Actress (Carrie Ng Ka-Lai)

• Nomination - Best Screenplay (Shum Sai-Sing)

• Nomination - Best Editing (Wong Ming-Lei)

• Nomination - Best Art Direction (Luk Chi-Fung)

• Nomination - Best Original Film Score (Teddy Robin Kwan)

• Nomination - Best Song ("Yiu Jaang Chui Faai Lok", performed by Maria Cordero)

THE KILLER

THE KILLER

Hongkong 1989

Directed by John Woo

Chow Yun Fat
Danny Lee
Sally Yeh
Chu Kong
Kenneth Tsang

The lead characters in John Woo's The Killer oscillate between searches for atonement and affect (the ability to do something that makes a permanent, tangible difference). John (Chow Yun-Fat) seeks (self-endowed) forgiveness for the wrong he has done Jenny (Sally Yeh), the taking of her eyesight. Li (Danny Lee) seeks a similar sort of self-endowed redemption for what he has done to John (bringing Tony Weng's men against him). The two, as John tells Li, are in a sense one another. John is a hitman still following the old code of honor; Li is a cop who breaks the rules when they conflict with his methods.

Sight is a running motif in The Killer. Jenny has lost her eyesight at the movie's opening, after an action sequence in which John kills a nightclub full of armed bodyguards. With the loss of her sight the viewer gains an awareness, the first evidence of John's code; John covers her eyes, both tending her wound and hiding her lack of sight from the audience's line of sight. John will continually conceal Jenny's increasing blindness, but from Jenny, not the audience (who upon recognizing John as compassionate come to identify with him). He lies when she asks him why the world has suddenly grown so dark, making excuses that he and the audience (and Li) all know to be lies.

Two such instances occur. The first is in John's apartment, after Li catches up to him for the first time and confronts him with gun and the potential of arrest. John tells Jenny that Li and he are old football buddies, loaded guns at arms' length. Jenny behaves towards them as if they truly were old friends, and Li a guest, offering him tea.

The second is in the church, the moment of total reconciliation between Li and John, in a siege scene strikingly similar in setup to the one performed by Chow and Lee in Ringo Lam's City on Fire (in which Lee plays the killer and Chow the cop out to bust him). But whereas Lam's inspector was an undercover agent wracked with the guilt of betraying his friend, Li has been open with John (though when we first see him he is on his way to an undercover assignment). Jenny claims everything has gone black; Li and John wave candles by her face to confirm.

Jenny's claim that all is black coincides not only with John and Li's union, but with Li's promise to John that if he dies his corneas will be saved for Jenny. At this point Li becomes, for the first time, concerned with the bystander in a way that has defined John's personality from the beginning. Li, when confronted by police officials for giving a nearby woman a heart attack while gunning down a fleeing cop killer, claims he doesn't give a damn about the woman, and that all that sort of concern does is make his job difficult. Li has come to embody what good is in John and lacking in himself, shortly after John did the same. John tells Jenny he had once thought the men he killed deserved to die, but now knows everyone has a right to live, a philosophy more in line with the one Li presents to John when confronting him outside Sydney's house, just before Weng's men lay siege. It should be noted the first scene occurs at night, the second in broad daylight. The darkness works as a metaphor for indistinction, but also for a sort of hierarchical reification, in which John's world view is held superior, both through its penultimacy and its locale; John becomes Li inside an assassin's house, Li becomes John inside a Catholic church.

Li takes on the role Sydney (Chu Kong) had once held, upon Sydney's redemption and subsequent death. In a single scene he and John kill more people than in all of Woo's American movies combined. John asks for guarantee that Li will uphold his promise twice, once in the heat of battle, once when they have cornered Tony Weng (Wing Cho Ip), who is holding Jenny at gunpoint. Between the two of them (now, at last, one) they sacrifice John's life, but in an ironic twist his eyes as well. John blindly crawls on his stomach, futilely searching for a now blind Jenny, futilely searching for John on her stomach. They pass each other, calling the other's name, until John falls silent and still, Jenny still crying out to him. Li runs Weng down, who is trying to turn himself in to a newly arrived battalion of police, where, in the presence of his superiors, he guns the crimelord down.

Jenny's final blindness is a recognition of John and Li's synthesis (when Li first approaches Jenny she mistakes him for John); John's blindness draws an association between him and Jenny. John has become the wounded bystander, not in his innocence, but in his purity (both operate as a sort of naïveté). John and Sydney, after John's botched attempt on the life of Tony Weng, speak of themselves as outmoded professionals, replaced by a breed of ruthless, codeless assassins who never take "the rules" into account. Li alone remains alive, though facing (extrapolatically) jail time. (Ironically, he catches John by becoming John; John would rather die before going jail, but by becoming Li does both, in the prophesied order.) Li emerges, compiling now all four characters (John and Jenny by association with John, Sydney in occupying his role), the only one not dead, and the only one not crippled at some time in his life. Li is perhaps the solution to the decay of the code, a man who is both investigator and vigilante, both cop and assassin, who both reveres and rejects the law as such.

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9th Annual Hong Kong Film Awards

• Winner - Best Director (John Woo)

• Winner - Best Editing (Fan Kung-Wing)

• Nomination - Best Picture

• Nomination - Best Supporting Actor (Paul Chu Kong)

• Nomination - Best Screenplay (John Woo)

• Nomination - Best Cinematography

(Wong Wing-Hang, Peter Pau Hei-Ming)

CHINA WHITE

CHINA WHITE

Hong Kong/USA 1991

Directed by Ronny Yu

Russel Wong

Steven Vincent Leigh

Billy Drago

Lisa Schrage

Ku Feng

Shot in both English and Asian versions, this peculiar Hong Kong action film from Ronny Yu boasts the somewhat overstated Chinese title of Sky-Shattering Meeting Between Dragon and Tiger. While not exactly sky-shattering, the film was shot in several countries (the Netherlands, France, and Thailand) and features some fine combat scenes choreographed by Chris Lee. Russell Wong and Steven Vincent star as Bobby and Danny Chow, triad gangsters who hope to expand their business outside of Amsterdam's Chinatown area. Their Uncle Chi (Ku Feng) is against the idea, but is soon murdered by part of an international triumvirate including Vietnamese thug Phong (William Ho), Italian mafioso Scalia (Billy Drago), and Turkish crimelord Amead (Cahit Olmez). Bobby and Danny then head to Thailand to secure a source for opium, only to be tracked by Bobby's girlfriend, Anne (Lisa Schrage), who is in reality an undercover agent hoping to bring their activities to an end. Yu makes a brief cameo appearance, while Alex Man and Andy Lau appear in the Hong Kong version of the film, along with Shing Fui-on and Carina Lau in extended flashbacks to Bobby and Danny's childhood. The Asian version runs 104 minutes, while the English one runs 98 but also includes footage not found in the Asian cut.(Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide)