Ah, well. Still, a couple of interesting things to note about the latest Hong Kong thriller to get an American release right alongside its Chinese ones:
First, Hong Kong action is the best. We all know this, I hope, but I notice something in this one that had sort of been floating in my head without necessarily connecting to anything: When there's a police pursuit going on, everybody is calling out fairly specific locations, and it strikes me that the film's entire primary audience knows where all that stuff is and can probably figure out where a chase is heading by noting what freeway people are driving on.
Obviously, I don't know to what extent the filmmakers actually prize bust their hump in terms of that sort of continuity - perhaps not at all. But I wonder. A film or TV show about New York City can fudge geography and while the locals may snicker, there's a whole lot of America that will never know. That's not the case in Hong Kong, though, and you've got to figure that changes the psychology a little, and, as a result, calls for an even greater attention to detail. It also makes Hong Kong movies some of the most intensely local films there are, no matter the genre, and you can sometimes feel that in things like the Cold War pair, which at times can seem really confusing if you don't know the HKSAR's governmental structure. What's kind of interesting is that, in all the discussion of governance and administration, there's little talk of China as a whole country; it almost plays as pre-handover story (though the term "handover" itself is used to describe potential changes in administration within the movie). What to make, then, of the characters; discussing the importance of the rule of law and accountability, and would that be the case if the movie was set in Beijing.
Which raises an interesting question that I hadn't really thought about: I had assumed that the screening I was seeing was in Cantonese, since that's what they speak in Hong Kong and the language in which the film was shot. And yet, a Facebook ad that popped up to announce the movie's expansion mentioned "Mandarin in the United States, Cantonese in Canada". Which means I probably saw it in Mandarin, which would explain a few things, like why there seemed to be weird dubbing in a scene or two, including one with Chow Yun-fat, who IIRC is much better in Cantonese than Mandarin.
I'm curious about the rationale behind that decision, though - did Chinese immigration to Canada disproportionately come from Canton compared to the United States? Do the cities where it plays up there (Toronto, Vancouver, and Ottawa) not have a lot of Chinese-Canadian people, so it's playing for guys like me who like Hong Kong cinema while the American theaters are near Chinatowns where most people speak Mandarin? I'm legitimately curious.
I should have noticed that it didn't sound hugely different from Foolish Games, which I opted to see as part of a double feature rather than screw with Red Line shuttles on Saturday or Sunday. Fun, although not quite as frenetic as the trailer made it out to be, but what comedy is? A bear of one to find documentation on, though - my usual go-to sites for movie information - IMDB, HKMDB, ChineseMov.com had almost nothing on it, and very little on any of the cast. Which again fires my curiosity - are these sites too Western-skewing to have information on movies not featuring guys with high profiles outside of China, or is this a relatively independent movie made with and by up-and-coming/unknown talent that got released in the United States on the basis of "why not?" - I know getting something onto digitally-projected screens isn't quite as simple/cheap as emailing a trailer and UPSing a hard drive to the theater, but is it cheap enough to take a flier on getting onto a few screens, especially since the folks booking American theaters may not be able to tell the difference between a Chinese blockbuster and a Chinese indie.
Someday I'm going to have to actually send out emails and really learn about the distribution of Chinese (and to a lesser extent, Korean) films in the USA. But now I'm kind of sad, wondering if it might be easier to get an independent Chinese movie into AMC multiplexes than independent American ones.
Hon zin (Cold War)
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 7 July 2016 in Jay's Living Room (sequel prep, Amazon HD streaming)
Several scenes in Cold War focus on a wall-sized declaration that Hong Kong is "The Safest City in Asia", which is not necessarily something that one would guess from its cinematic output: They are good at crime thrillers both because they've got some of the world's best at staging action and are not nearly as afraid of showing everybody as compromised as some of their neighbors. Leung Lok-man and Luk Kim-ching are a relatively new writing/directing team, and they made a movie that leans more on convoluted infighting than shootouts but still gets impressively tense.
As it starts, the city's police commissioner is at a conference in Copenhagen boasting about the city's crime record when a bomb explodes at a downtown cineplex and a drunk driver splits his car in half. It's the latter that may prove more dangerous - the police van sent to investigate disappears, and what looks like another bomb turns out to be a ransom demand. Deputy Commissioner of Operations M.B. Lee (Tony Leung Ka-fai) is acting as commissioner, but with his son Joe (Eddie Peng Yu-yan) among the missing, Lee's opposite number in Management, Sean Lau (Aaron Kwok Fu-sing) pushes to take charge of the massive operation "Cold War" that Lee started.
The easy way to go with this movie would be a simple cat-and-mouse game between the cops and the kidnappers, maybe with some overlap if it turns out that they had an inside man. That's there, sure, but the greatest tensions are found in police headquarters; Lau and Lee are not only likely to be the top two choices as the next commissioner, but diametrically opposed in both temperament and methodology. Luk & Leung make things fairly dense from early on - the film opens with an (unsubtitled, at least on Amazon) organizational chart detailing how the HKPD is structured, and every time one of a dozen or two important characters are introduced, there's an on-screen indication of their name, rank, and specialty. Later in the movie, as it gets past the hostage situation and starts to look at the aftermath, the ICAC (more or less internal affairs) investigates Lau, bringing in another group of cops in suits. It's at around that point that the viewer might perhaps get a bit impatient; the main thrust seems both resolved and not at once. It holds together, and everything winds up connecting, but close attention needs to be paid.
Even if the viewer trips over some of the plot, he or she can certainly get the main gist of what's going on by watching the two leads. They're both scowling types in this situation, but Aaron Kwok is impressive in how he plays Lau as the straight-arrow without making the character naïve or hopelessly optimistic, and there's no denying the calculating intelligence and ambition he displays as well. Tony Leung Ka-fai, on the other hand, is playing the former street cop who, while far from stupid, tends to default to the use of force. Leung, sleek with his shaved head and trim goatee, always looks ready to charge at his problems, and it's easy to tell that while his son being one of the hostages means that his intensity is up a couple notches, he's probably like this all the time. Each excels playing off their own coterie of subordinates, but crank it up when they've got to face off, giving the impression that propriety is all that keeps them from ripping each other apart.
There's a good group around them, as well. Andy Lau is the biggest name, but he's just there for something slightly larger than a cameo as the Secretary of Security. Charlie Yeun Choi-nei plays the head of public relations, and playing against Kwok tends to keep Lau seeming reasonable. Eddie Peng and Joyce Cheng do good work to put a face on the hostages, while Aarif Lee Chi-ting enters midway through the movie but makes himself an important part of it as the pushy but dedicated corruption investigator. Andy On, Gordon Lam, and Chin Ka-lok handle a lot of the action and do so well.
Compared to some crime movies, Cold War is somewhat light on action compared to reciting regulations, but Leung & Luk don't let it become dull; they trust the audience to absorb the situation being set up and move on to the next thing, keeping pressure on by having the cast dial it up to just a few steps away from self-parody (and getting a fairly aggressive score from Peter Kam). When the action does come, though, it's good, big stuff. They're excellent at achieving clarity when cars are tailing each other or sight lines need to be established, while scenes that need to act as exclamation points don't mess around at all, especially an explosive finale.
A big hit in its native territory, the film has spawned a sequel that got a simultaneous American release, which is superior but leans on what is set up here quite a bit. Even if you're not thinking of doing a double feature, this is a pretty sharp thriller, certainly upholding the Hong Kong tradition of crime movies that hit hard and move quickly.
(Formerly at EFC)
Full review on EFC.
Hon zin II (Cold War 2)
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 8 July 2016 in AMC Boston Common #11 (first-run, DCP)
Hitting American screens the same time it premieres in Hong Kong, Cold War 2 might be a tough sell to even those looking for a different flavor of crime and action in the middle of a disappointing summer movie season: It's a Cantonese-language sequel that is fairly specific to its setting and picks up right where the first one left off, with the one actor with name recognition this side of the Pacific in something of a supporting role. But, while a little bit of catch-up viewing of the first film is advised (and not something one would likely regret), it's worth a look on its own, with a few terrific action sequence surrounded by an impressively twisty thriller.
(If you haven't seen the first, maybe skip the rest, as it's hard to describe what this one is about without referencing the other.)
When Cold War ended, the HKPD believed that they had the mastermind in custody with Deputy Commissioner (Management) Sean Lau (Aaron Kwok Fu-sing) set to become the new commissioner as both his superior and Deputy Commissioner (Operations) M.B. Lee (Tony Leung Ka-fai) take early retirement. However, not only was the stolen police van was still missing, but Lau had received a call threatening his wife (Ma Yili). Soon after the funeral of an officer who died during "Operation Cold War", she is kidnapped, with the ransom being the release of perpetrator Joe Lee (Eddie Peng Yu-yan), M.B.'s son who was, apparently, just part of a larger conspiracy. The exchange is a disaster, leading to an inquiry headed up by Representative Oswald Kan (Chow Yun-fat) - during which Lee, after meeting with former Commissioner Peter Choi (Chang Kuo-chu), accuses Lau of taking bribes.
Both Kan and Lau start their own investigations, with the former leaning on his barrister niece Isabelle Au (Janice Man Wing-san) and the latter on Billy Cheung (Aarif Lee Chi-ting), the internal affairs officer who investigated him, and while that seems like a lot of moving parts, Cold War 2 is more straightforward than its predecessor even as it scales up. The larger conspiracy revealed here gives a convoluted, dangerous plan more return, and getting a main character more directly involved keeps it from being nothing but shadows. As much as this is still a high-level game of cat-and-mouse with three or four factions working at cross-purposes, not hiding what's going on keeps things running smoothly even as returning writer/directors "Sunny" Luk Kim-ching and "Longmond" Leung Lok-man (with Jack Ng Wai-lun also contributing to the script) throw more on the pile without slowing down much.
They do still have some of the problems with overstuffing that plagued their first film, as well as the occasional thing that doesn't quite seem to match. It occasionally feels like the large cast, including many people credited as "guest stars" or "special appearances", was hard to schedule, resulting in supporting characters being shuffled in and out as needed. Given just how rigidly Lee was dedicated to the law in the first movie, the natural assumption when he is brought into the conspiracy is that he intends to bring it down, and when his actions don't necessarily line up with that, I wonder if maybe Luk & Leung could have done a little more work getting into Lee's head than just moving on to the next thing. That next thing is not always exciting, either, especially during the first half; audience members may find themselves fidgeting during a long string of scenes that are formal police and legislative procedure.
Stick it out, though, because just as that's starting to wear, one character tails another into a tunnel, and an absolutely terrific action sequence breaks out, initially paced so that the audience is getting a tingle indicating that something is going to go down even while cars just seem to be innocuously following each other, and then full of impressive choreography and stunt/effects work when that something goes down. Unlike a lot of action bits that play as ends unto themselves, the ones here are not just violent in nature but upend the story, tending to create a new status quo and emotionally fueling what comes afterward or creating a genuine sense of catharsis. Luk & Leung, along with action director Chin Ka-lok, do this so well that a little CGI that's not quite up to Hollywood standards (though not that far off) can't derail the genuine feeling of excitement.
Most of the surviving cast of characters returns, most notably the two leads, and they give the same sort of performances they did in 2012, although they're starting from a less confrontational place than they did in the first. Aaron Kwok and Tony Leung Ka-fai play Lau and Lee as a little wiser with their intensity more fired by personal concerns than the strictly professional things that fired them in the first, but they're given chances to do somewhat subtler work when the chess games start later on. The other returnees - Charlie Yeung Choi-nei, Eddie Peng Yu-nan, Aarif Lee Chi-ting - get a little more to do and manage to make their characters feel a bit more three-dimensional and less purpose-built.
There are a bunch of good new additions, too. Chang Kuo-chu pops in and establishes himself as a force to be reckoned right away, more so than Lee Waise as the actual alpha villain. The biggest, though, is Chow Yun-fat as Oswald Kan; Chow hasn't had the greatest run lately - those Man from Macau movies have not been very good, and Office had him play cold - but Oswald is a part that reminds one just how charismatic he can be even as he's being calculating, and he manages to get one of the few laughs these films allow. Janice Man Wing-san charms pretty quickly as Oswald's niece Isabelle, so it's a bit of a bummer than most of their scenes together are simple character-establishing things.
The film ends on a scene that is both more and less blatant a cliffhanger than the first had - there's room for a Cold War 3 should the box office warrant it, although it likely won't be such a direct continuation and expansion as this one. Indeed, these two films merge into one larger, possibly even better thriller, something well worth checking out even if Hong Kong action isn't always your cup of tea.
(Formerly at EFC)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 8 July 2016 in AMC Boston Common #6 (first-run, DCP)
"Screwball" is probably the hardest thing to pull off in the movies, and given that the phrase "foolish plans" is probably part of any definition of the genre, it's not surprising that filmmaker Jiang Tao is on the right track with his latest movie. Making the peculiar look effortless can be a tough gig, though, and it's often easy to see how Jiang and his movie are working - the film has a charm that can't be denied, even if it sometimes doesn't quite get the pacing right.
It's got three friends and roommates working as propmen on a movie - schemer Sung Da-hu (Wang Zijian), husky but good-natured Zheng Qiu (Xiu Rui), and charming but somewhat awkward Wu Chenfeng (Wang Ning). Even before producer "President" JIn is threatening to shut the production down, the three are fired for a number of screwups, and "Feng" is considering going back to his home village, where local girl Duoduo (Cya Liu Ya-se) would be willing to marry him. There's a hitch, though - Feng is already married, to Jin's last mistress Sheng Jiaoyang ("Angel" Wang Ou), a paper marriage to legitimize the baby she was carrying. Since Jin is a real heel - he sent out thugs when he noticed Zheng flirting with latest mistress Lisa (Crystal Chen Yang) - Da-hu suggests they shake him down for their back pay while Feng seeks a divorce. The trouble is, Feng is pretty taken when he meets Jiaoyang for a second time - oh, and Jin soon drops dead of a heart attack, so both the cops and his underworld partners are taking a good look at the people trying to pry what they consider their money loose from him.
There are bits of Foolish Plans that hint at a film trying a bit too hard, like the way that Feng, Zheng, and Da-hu apparently live in an apartment in the middle of a scrapyard that provides equipment they might need for building props or whatever other devices they might need later. There are also times when it struggles to find something for all three of the roommates to do - there are a few scenes toward the start about Da-hu dealing with a guy who makes restorations for museums that will only vaguely tie in with the rest of the stories, if that (this part has a fair number of on-screen graphics that don't receive even the sometimes-rough subtitling the rest of the film gets), and Zheng gets sidelined for a while with what seem like merely obligatory check-ins.
For the most part, though, it stays amiably rather than affectedly quirky. Jiang may be rushing into things to start, but once Feng and Jiaoyang meet each other for a second time, something clicks - aside from how it's surprising for being a character gleefully going off-script rather than being caught up by circumstance, it counters the cynical scheming of Da-hu with something downright charming, at least initially. It lets him create an upbeat mood that plays well against jokes about crime and possible murder, and if they don't quite come at a rapid-fire pace, they come quick enough, climaxing with a slapstick finale that, yes, uses a bunch of visual effects, but has almost everything running in the right silly direction.
The cast is fun, too. Wang Ning and Wang Ou are technically the leads as Feng and Jiaoyang, goofiness and time are apportioned among the ensemble well, and everybody gets to have some fun. Wangs Ning and Ou do have great chemistry, though, from her dismissive ignorance of him in the opening scene to cheery sparks to working at potential cross-purposes, really selling that, despite sort of being presented as the least eccentric, they're kind of weird. Xiu Rui and Wang Zijian would be comic relief characters in other movies, but just part of the gang here, and both (Xiu especially) are good at being funny on the edges while being important to the story. Xya Liu Ya-se doesn't appear as more than a photograph until halfway through, but she fits in well, even if Duoduo does bring a little drama.
Bringing in drama is kind of an issue here - at about 112 minutes long, the film is a bit flabby for a broad comedy, and never more so when it follows something really goofy with something dramatic (there's a big section I'd like to rip out of the last act, because a movie doesn't need to have both "funny" and "serious" resolutions). There are also a couple of weird tone things that may say more about the viewer than the movie, most notably that while I can easily deal with threats of murder as a way to move a comedy forward, a woman coming back from her lover with a bruised face can seem a bit much.
Foolish Plans is not a perfect screwball comedy; there might not actually be such a thing in today's naturalistic, less buttoned-down movie world. It's pretty funny with a couple of very funny moments, not a bad matinee.
(Formerly at EFC)
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