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The Viral Factor or Jik zin (2012)
film
Well, I happily sat down to watch this during the Chinese Lunar New Year so, in the necessary spirit of the times, The Viral Factor or Jik zin (2012) was a firecracker of a film. For those of you not familiar with the science behind firecrackers, you should know the manufacturers take a cardboard tube and tightly pack it with gunpowder to ensure the whole thing explodes with the maximum violence and noise. This is not the same as fireworks which are designed to propel very pretty coloured lights into the sky so we can all oooh and aaah in delight.
So, if you want to see a film with an amazing number of bullets, RPGs and fists flying while cars chase, helicopters hover and container ships float, this is the film for you because, as the saying goes, this film has all that stuff in spades. The only thing it lacks is a coherent plot and anything approaching self-discipline on the part of the director. Sadly, once Dante Lam gets the bit between his teeth, an action sequence can just go on and on. Indeed, watching the helicopters feels interminable.
Jay Chou and Elaine Jin enjoying a quiet moment toether
What, then, should the plot be? It can be summed up in a single sentence. A police officer and his brother take on criminals who want to make a fortune out of selling the vaccine after releasing a new smallpox virus. What do we actually have? Well, dog’s breakfast sums it up. We start off in the Lebanon where a team from the International Security Affairs is to escort a captured rogue scientist to a safe location. Frankly, I had no idea who anyone is nor who I should be watching apart from Jay Chou who’s Jon Wan Fei, one of the grunts. There’s a major police operation but, despite everyone’s best efforts, the scientist is taken away and all the team seems to be killed apart from Jay Chou. Fortunately, he’s only been shot in the head so it’s not a serious injury. Now comes the ultimate cliché. The best surgeons available dare not operate to remove the bullet. It’s touching the thingamagummy in his brain and, if it shifts, he’s a gonner. But fear not, Jay Chou fans, he can walk around for about two weeks but then will spontaneously drop dead. So, minutes after being given the good news, he’s on a plane back home. Except, I may have been wrong about everyone else in the team dying. Perhaps the one that shot Jay Chou in the head was a renegade ISA agent. I’ll come back to that. As a final thought, with RPGs blowing up vehicles and bullets spraying indiscriminately, how does the mastermind ensure his scientist is uninjured? Particularly if the mastermind is one of those guarding him. Grenades and bullets are not discriminating.
Nicholas Tse showing his star firepower
Passing quickly on, the emotional hooks have to be planted. We’ve had the dream sequence to start off the film and now Jon’s mother (Elaine Jin) tells him he has a long-lost brother in Malaysia. So, seconds later he’s in another plane — look out for the product placement for the airline but see the adverse message. The plane is inadequately pressurised and the high altitude is pressing the bullet into his thingamagummy. So a friendly doctor (Lin Peng) walks onto the flight-deck (no fear of terrorists on this airline) and they fly a bit lower. See, it’s a caring airline. Tony Fernandez can relax. So by coincidence, this doctor is one of the few people in the world who can manipulate the virus and manufacture the vaccine. From this you will understand the original rogue scientist was killed trying to escape his captors. So the mastermind sends Jon’s brother to kidnap the doctor. You see how the plot just meshes together into one of the most credible ever written. Yes, it’s the good and bad brother tag teaming as Nicholas Tse kidnaps both doctor and head-case at gun point. Not surprisingly, the brothers don’t recognise each other after twenty and more years so they fight and Jay Chou engineers their escape.
Lin Peng and Nicholas Tse
It’s at this point we see the pattern emerge. Jay Chou will be battered around the head with fists, metal bars and any other weapons to hand. He will be in car crashes and fall from heights on to his head but the bullet will not move. He will shake himself, perhaps manage a token stagger, maybe even swallow a quick pill, and then run, jump and fight some more. Nicholas Tse proves equally bulletproof (although towards the end, both brothers do put on some kevlar which soaks up everything fired at them apart from a few token scratches on the shoulders and arms). No sense in them taking unnecessary risks. In due course, the brothers are formally introduced and there’s the missing dad (Kai Chi Liu) and cute daughter. We now have all the elements to mix and match hostages, and for the big emotional ending when we get to see the meaning of the original dream. It’s intended as a real tearjerker. Add in Andy On, Carl Ng (I gave up caring which one was the renegade ISA agent — suffice it to say it doesn’t matter) and Anthony Sandstrom as an international gunrunner, and you have a high-profile international cast to widen the distribution potential for what has been an expensive production. Some of the dialogue is shot in English and some in Malay to run alongside the Cantonese. It’s hilariously ironic the Cantonese need subtitles in a film made by one of their own.
The real star of the film — the virus
On paper, this was a great film. Although I’m mocking the lack of plot, both Jay Chou and Nicholas Tse come out of it quite well. They are not required to show a great emotional range but they smile and snarl on command, and both look good as action heroes. Taken individually, the action scenes are of a high standard. They do go on too long but they look good. Kuala Lumpur also looks good and much less stagey than in other films (only a brief glimpse of the Petronas Tower). If all this had been put in aid of a coherent plot, it would have been a fabulous way of spending the Lunar New Year. As it was, The Viral Factor or Jik zin was like watching a bomb explode and leave a smoking crater.
Other films by Nicholas Tse:
The Beast Stalker or Ching Yan (2008)
The Bullet Vanishes or Xiao shi de zi dan (2012)
Storm Warriors or Fung wan II (2009)
Treasure Inn or Cai Shen Ke Zhan (2011)
Rosy Business or Jin Guo Xiao Xiong (2010) — episodes 12 to the end
With the help of a little brandy in my coffee, the story trudges on with a new theme as locusts threaten the crops. Naturally, everyone except Hong Bo Kei, (Sheren Tang), Chai Kau (Wayne Lai) and a few old farmers in the fields who remember the last plague, want to see the warning signs. So Hong Bo Kei orders an early harvest even though this will mean losing about 80% of the planting. She reasons it’s better to have something than nothing. Everyone else thinks she’s nuts and ignores the threat. Chai Kau and the loyal workers then build decoy grain storage to deceive the local people into thinking there’s enough rice to feed them all. In the midst of all this, Cheung Kiu (Elliot Yue) revives and, as the locust swarm descends, listens to the lies of Yan Fung Yee (Susan Tse) about how Cheung Bit Man (Pierre Ngo) has been the saviour of the business. As intended, the local people are deceived by the granaries and the panic subsides. A friend then tells Chai Kau it was Cheung Bit Man who engineered his capture by Pang Hang (Lee Sing Cheung). Now, in the midst of all the chaos, Chai Kau is out for revenge.
Sheren Tang and Wayne Lai join the rebellion
In due course, Pang Heng catches his nephew and mistress without their clothes on. He then blackmails Hong Bo Kei into paying a large sum of hush money. She obviously wants to avoid Cheung Kiu being upset. Unfortunately, Cheung Bit Man gets all excited when he gets home and blurts out a completely distorted version of reality. At this point, his mother takes matters into her own hands and beats him black and blue — a remedy that should have been routinely applied from an early age. This keeps him in the home although he’s hanging by a thread. Meanwhile, Chai Kau and Hong Bo Kei conspire to displace Pang Heng’s monopoly on the river route. Fortunately, the Prince (Kwok Fung) reappears to find out why rice is more expensive when it comes from this part of China. When he discovers the protection racket, he orders open competition on the river route. For different reasons, this leaves both Cheung Bit Man and Pang Heng plotting revenge. Meanwhile, even though he’s only got a few episodes left to live, Cheung Kiu goes off into the countryside to get his third wife Lau Fong (Kara Hui) to come back. Pang Kiu (Kiki Sheung), the second wife, decides she can’t stand living in the same household as Hong Bo Kei so, when Cheung Bit Mo (Kelvin Leung) her son is due to take the exams to enter the civil service, she goes off with him.
The mountain men are now paying Chai Kau to plot their dominance of the water route and, to rub Pang Heng up the wrong way, our hero takes in the ex-mistress who is out on the streets begging. Wedding bells are in the offing here as for Cheung Bit Ching (Ron Ng) who’s lining up to marry the confidence trickster who cheated him when they first met. Meanwhile, Cheung Bit Man has hired three assassins who wait in the shadows to kill Chai Kau. On the night of his wedding celebration, they carry his drunken form to the lake, stab him and throw him in, weighted down with a rock. Back in the mainstream plot, Cheung Kiu has formally made two wills and left them with the Price while, in an adjoining province, the Taiping Rebellion is starting and the Longhairs have begun their onslaught. This now threatens the second wife and her son. With Chai Kau still missing, the mountain men rally to fight Pang Heng, but Hong Bo Kei talks them out of a direct attack. When she confronts Pang Heng, he tells her of the three assassins he has seen about town. Further investigation finds Cheung Bit Man paying them off. The problem is evidence. As the Qing Dynasty sends troops to confront the rebels, the local Magistrate tries to extort rice from Hong Bo Kei. She refuses, but Yan Fung Yee and Cheung Bit Man offer him a bribe to help them grab the business when Cheung Kiu finally dies.
Pierre Ngo sets fire to the grain store
With Cheung Kiu finally dead, the corrupt wing of the family now tries simple fraud to seize the business, but the Prince is on hand to see Hong Bo Kei remains in charge. Chai Kau now re-emerges (how disappointing he didn’t actually die) and promises revenge. With Cheung Bit Man released from jail for lack of evidence on the murder charge, Chai Kau is plotting a murder of his own despite Hong Bo Kei’s attempts to dissuade him. The Longhair rebels may be coming our way having incidentally killed the second wife. With any luck, they will kill the entire cast before things get any more awful. While we wait for the rebels, Cheung Bit Man finds out Chai Kau is alive and sets a trap to kill him, but our hero turns out to be bulletproof as well as stabproof. The Longhairs kill the leader of the mountain men so the wounded Chai Kau is promoted to Boss. He’s determined to make a profit and keep Wuxia safe. He makes another attempt to kill Cheung Bit Man, but Hong Bo Kei persuades him not to do it and the boy runs into hiding. When the rebels finally arrive, it turns out the General is a childhood friend of Pang Heng who’s put in charge of the local militia. A trap is set by Yan Fung Yee to get Hong Bo Kei out of the way but, not surprisingly, it fails. Nevertheless, the calm following the General’s arrival is disturbed.
Anyway, it turns out these rebels are awfully nice chaps (not at all as portrayed in the history books) and, once Hong Bo Kei and Chai Kau have set the General straight on who the good guys are, Pang Heng has to do the dog walk (albeit with pig bones), while Yan Fung Yee and Cheung Bit Man run off with the money they had buried under a tree in the family house’s garden. As the troops loyal to the Qing Dynasty approach, the General shoots himself in the head and those who have been collaborating to ensure the safety of Wuxia debate how to avoid being killed. In the end, they run off with the retreating rebels except the Qing troops come prematurely and they are cut off.
Now comes retribution from the Qing troops and, with the corrupt magistrate’s return, the Yan Fung Yee and Pang Heng show is running again. This time, Hong Bo Kei and Chai Kau are hauled off to jail. This prompts the mouse-like Lau Fong to make the dangerous journey to Nanking to fetch the Prince. She gets the message through but dies in the attempt. The Prince’s arrival sees everyone back in the right place except Chai Kau now has consumption and feels like death is imminent. Cheung Bit Man is out of control and, egged on by Uncle Pang Heng, they decide the raid the family home and burn down the rice stores. Unfortunately, Bit Man contrives to mess up even this simple task and burns to death. The robbery is more successful and Pang Heng briefly escapes with the family jewels. There’s then a terrible melodramatic ending as Yan Fung Yee raves in front of what’s left of the household, explaining how her son burned himself to death but was not a bad boy. This leaves her less than fully sane in her mother-in-law’s care. For us, there are just two things to resolve. The keys get handed over to Cheung Bit Ching, allowing fourth wife to retire, and Chai Kau goes off with Father Brown. It seems Western medicine is arriving in China and may be able to save him. At the last moment, his wife tells Hong Bo Kei to go in her place and the two soul mates have two years of happiness before the consumption finally drags him off.
Frankly, this has been an embarrassingly bad serial with the thinnest of plots and everything apart from an opening sequence showing the Prince travelling across country and the ending by the river done on the cheap in the same sets. This seriously limited the scope for drama with hammy acting coming to the fore with Pierre Ngo as Cheung Bit Man growing more obviously insane as the episodes passed, Lee Sing Cheung as Pang Heng rolling his eyes, curling his lip and trying to look tough as the local triad boss, and Susan Tse as Yan Fung Yee contriving to look like the wicked witch except when her hair got all mussed up at the end. Ron Ngo wasn’t given much to do and poor Wayne Lai had a thankless role with him running hot and cold at the beginning and then getting all noble at the end. Only Sheren Tang emerges with any credit. She did at least come over as sincere.
For the review of the first episodes see: Rosy Business or Jin Guo Xiao Xiong (2010) — episodes 1 to 11.
Life Without Principle or Dyut meng gam (2011)
Perhaps it’s rather depressing to start with a hope that all the films featuring greed as if it’s endemic to Hong Kong are exaggerated. Yet, the more consistently the theme appears, as in The Heart of Greed (2007) by TVB, the more I’m drawn to the conclusion this small country, now run under the “one-China” system, is caught up in the worst excess of the vice. In the West, we’re perhaps more used to thinking of the Gordon Gekko stereotype as representing the worst of our own brand of capitalism, particularly as practised by the banks. Yet it’s daunting to consider the sheer number of Hong Kongers that play the various markets and, if that’s not enough action, then turn to more conventional gambling. Fairly recent research shows about 70% of the population engage in at least one form of gambling with slightly more than half those gambling being under the age of twenty-one. This reflects a widespread belief that “fate” can be controlled in the search for ways of making quick money.
Panther (Ching Wan Lau) defends himself
Life Without Principle or Dyut meng gam revolves around a day in the life of Teresa (Denise Ho) a bank employee who faces the daily grind of trying to sell investments to anyone with savings. Her lot is not a happy one because she has to take the abuse when she cold calls, and the anger when the investments she sells fail to deliver the expected high returns. Worse, her sales record is the worst in her team and she knows she will be the next one fired. Her morning then runs with two extremes and one in the middle walking through her door. She has a little old lady (So Hang-Shuen) who knows nothing about investment, but feels the nominal interest rates paid on savings are an insult. After some negotiation, the innocent mark buys units in an investment trust based on the BRIC economies. She’s officially certified low risk. This is high risk investment and we all know it’s not going to work out well. The second client is Connie (Myolie Wu), a police inspector’s wife, who wants a mortgage to buy a flat. This is a no-brainer. Inspector Cheung (Richie Ren) is a civil servant with a solid salary and can afford this loan. The final client is Yuen (Lo Hoi-Pang) a money lender who hoards cash so it’s available to be lent out at high rates of interest. When she tries to sell him an investment, he gives her chapter and verse on why her product is a bad deal. Naturally, she knows he speaks the truth. He’s come to collect HK$10 million but, in a couple of angry telephone calls, this is reduced to $5 million because the borrower is not promising enough security. This leaves $5 million in the hands of Teresa without a signed deposit slip as the moneylender heads off to the underground car park. Sadly, he’s then attacked by a wannabe thief, and they beat each other to death. The money disappears and, miracle of miracles, it looks as though Teresa may be able to pocket the $5 million.
Teresa (Denise Ho) has another bad day
It should be said this is a key day in the history of the world’s stock exchanges when the possibility of the Greek Government’s default emerged and the Euro tanked. Bearing this fact in mind, we then have a long flashback which is very badly signalled. Frankly, I was confused as we switched into a completely different narrative thread featuring Panther (Ching Wan Lau), a minder for triad bosses who’s fanatically loyal, as honest as the day is long, and fascinated by patterns in betting behaviour. We first watch him at work collecting hong baos before a celebratory dinner, then follow him as he raises the money to bail out his sworn brother gangster (Siu-Fai Eddie Cheung) who’s been arrested yet again. One of those touched for money is a karung guni man who prospers by collecting paper and cardboard boxes. He’s one of the few people we meet who makes an honest living. He matches the old man in the lift who sees only hopelessness for those at the bottom of the heap yet who’s talked out of committing suicide by Inspector Cheung. Later we have the mirror image of hard work and its just rewards when Inspector Cheung interviews the wannabe robber’s girlfriend (J.J. Jia). She’s aggressively unapologetic for seeing robbery as the best way to get ahead in Hong Kong. Her anger at her boyfriend’s incompetence and unfortunate demise is beautifully judged.
Inspector Cheung (Richie Ren) and Connie (Myolie Wu) thinking about the future
Anyway, Panther turns out to be the pivotal figure as he volunteers to help an old friend who runs an intermediate level share-dealing operation. This friend anticipates a market drop and tries to close out his primary account with a triad boss. This attempted hack is immediately identified and he then needs to borrow from the loan shark to cover his losses. Panther is therefore the one who picks up the $5 million after the independent robber is beaten to a pulp.
If this was a morality tale, it would be good to report that virtue was rewarded and the sinners were all punished, but life never works out like that. Somehow, career criminals always seem to end up more wealthy than when they started, honest police officers stay poor throughout, and bank employees get fired when they fail to hit their targets. So, through a mixture of well-honed skills, righteousness and blind luck, some get ahead while others are impoverished as the world share markets prove volatile. Although Life Without Principle or Dyut meng gam starts slowly and is confusing when it switches in time, it builds to a conclusion no-one should want to argue with. It’s not a case of just deserts, but director Johnnie To seems to strike the right balance between winners and losers. Think of it as a thriller in that people are killed in the pursuit of money, a police procedural in that someone must make an effort to enforce the law, and a kind of comedy in that for someone to win on a bet, others must lose.
Hong Kong director Johnnie To Kei-fung won best director for Life Without Principle and Lau Ching Wan was named best actor for his role at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Awards 2012.
Other films featuring Lau Ching Wan:
The Bullet Vanishes or Xiao shi de zi dan (2012)
The Great Magician
Mad Detective or San taam
Overheard
Overheard 2
The King of Snooker or Zhuo Qiu Tian Wang or Cheuk Kau Tin Wong
The King of Snooker or Zhuo Qiu Tian Wang or Cheuk Kau Tin Wong from TVB is a fascinating appropriation of the game to feature in a routine romantic drama from Hong Kong. This is the Chinese version of the Japanese anime serial The Prince of Tennis which takes a perfectly good story about a young tennis player struggling to emerge from the shadow of his father, and implies tennis is a game enhanced by supernatural powers. The animation shows kung fu shots either making the ball move in unpredictable ways, or physically attacking the opponent(s) in some way. It’s the same with this version of snooker. The serial takes the reality that the winners in any sport are those who combine technique with the right mental outlook, and physically shows ball control that defies reality. Worse, key matches are played as a single frame, a format no professional players accept unless in specially defined competitions such as the British Pot Black competition or the new Power Snooker format which is limited by time, irrespective of the number of frames played. No professional player of any quality would agree to put a major title on the line in a single frame competition. Luck might play too big a part as one player could fluke a ball or get an unfortunate kick. Over a reasonable number of frames, luck evens out and produces a fairer way of producing a champion.
Patrick Tang and Adam Cheng summon the chi for the final match
So, as a young man, super-cool Yau Yat Kiu (Adam Cheng) plays a game of snooker with a girl as the stake. The winner of the one-frame match is to be allowed a free run to court her. Unfortunately, the girl finds out and our previously all-conquering hero is so embarrassed by playing the game for such a purpose, he retires. Trading on his reputation as the “King of Snooker”, he opens a cafe called Cue Power with the support of his brother Yau Yee Bo (Benz Hui). He marries and produces a daughter, Yau Ka Kan (Niki Chow). We have the usual family problems with the brother, Yee Bo, essentially played for laughs as the shy, bumbling innocent. Part of the drama comes from Yee Bo’s inability to cope with his brother’s success. Ka Kan also loves the game of snooker but lacks confidence. Supercool Dad doesn’t know how best to teach her and ends up upsetting her.
Our girl is loved from afar by Kan Tze Him (Patrick Tang). He’s a talented player and is taken on by Supercool as his disciple (this is the shifu concept borrowed from kung fu serials). Him’s aunt, Chin To To (Joyce Tang) manages a successful marketing company and, as one of its ventures, represents the new King of Snooker called Lui Kin Chung (Derek Kwok) who’s a flashy player but socially unimpressive. His manager is Tong Ting (Wilson Tsui) who was rejected by Yat Kiu when young and is out for revenge. He will do everything he can to humiliate Yat Kiu, whether it’s provoking him into a snooker competition, spying on him to understand his training methods, hypnotising Ka Kan to make her forget her father and then, in the match itself, drugging Yat Kiu’s water. Fortunately, Lui Kin sees the light and fires the crooked agent. This should make everything right with the world of snooker with only righteous players and agents. Except now he’s had another taste of the big time, Yat Kiu is in the mood to keep playing in public. Can he really follow the comeback trail and win consistently enough to prove he’s still the Supercool King of Snooker?
Benz Hui and Niki Chow as uncle and niece
Now we’re into subplots. What will happen to Joyce Tang’s cousin? She’s unhappily married to a rich businessman who sponsors snooker. And how will our girl, Ka Kan, end up with Him? This is the usual convoluted on-off situation with two shy young people unable to say anything meaningful to each other. And just when it looks as though Him has mustered the courage to tell Her he’s in love, Him’s uncle tells the story of Supercool’s original bet and that the stake was Him’s mother. Him is now cooling rapidly, remembering an argument between his parents where his father blamed his mother’s continuing feelings for Supercool as the reason for the marriage’s failure. With the wedge now between them, Tong Ting puts pushes in as agent, telling Him more about his father and the way he played. Him even pushes our girl away. And after all that effort to buy her a bracelet. What a waste!
Yee Bo annoys the rich guy who sponsors the snooker competitions, disapproving the latter’s dalliance with his secretary and blaming Joyce Tang for not defending her cousin. Eventually, the rich guy is pushed into a divorce with Yee Bo agreeing to admit he committed adultery with Joyce’s cousin. Supercool defends Joyce for failing to intervene and you can see them edging towards each other.
Derek Kwok is sadly underused as Lui Kin
Now we’re into a Pot Black competition in Hong Kong with sixteen snooker players and our girl as one of eight pool players. Everyone’s winning but Him’s making waves because he’s showing off by creating unbeatable snookers. For Supercool, this is dangerous. His protégé is getting arrogant and playing tricks to win rather than playing in the spirit of the game, aiming to humiliate rather than win fairly. Ka Kan is through to the final of the pool so girl-power is set up as the winner. She may not be a winner at snooker, but pool’s definitely her game
So with Tong Ting taking Him in hand, he tricks Lui Kin into teaching Him how to play with his left hand. This gets his man through to the finals to play shifu. But now Supercool has bad news about his eyesight. Will he be able to see well enough to play the last match? He tries to give his Heavenly Cue to Him and retire gracefully. When Him refuses, he’s forced to play on. Daffy Brother Yee Bo and Joyce’s cousin are getting closer. Tong Ting is teaching Him to be ruthless. Except, of course, Tong Ting is betting on the outcome of the Pot Black final and wants a particular result.
Supercool and Lui Kin exchange pointers about yoga and other spiritual matters as training for the final. While it’s laudable to see the implication of sports psychology raised, the training devolves into cod spirituality. Worse Lui Kin suggests Supercool memorise the position of the balls so that, if vision is disrupted, he will know the colours of all the balls. Even more laughable is the suggestion a blind Supercool could pot balls. As a final gesture at humour, Joyce gives Supercool a pair of underwater goggles that massage the acupuncture points of his eyes.
As predicted, Daughter Ka Kan wins the pool competition which is the first to seven frames — a sensible basis for deciding the winner. Now we come into the final frame of the snooker between shifu and his disciple. Both are holding magic cues as Lui Kin hands over his “dragon” cue to ensure a “fair” match. Him has also set up Tong Ting to make the wrong bet and so bankrupt himself. Ironically, whether winner or loser, Him should win the girl. Shifu will retire having played the last match to his best and in honour. The arithmetic of the scoring in the final game makes no sense with everything subordinated to the need to create a dramatic climax where shifu can win if he pots the black. His eyesight fails at this critical moment and Him doubles the black into the middle pocket. Perhaps Supercool’s eyesight will be cured. Either way, he ends up with Joyce Tang. Him gets Her, and Yee Bo and Joyce’s cousin win the night’s prize for being the most unlikely couple of the year.
The only thing that saves this serial from disaster is the performance of Adam Cheng as Supercool Yau Yat Kiu. He brings a genuine sincerity to the role of an arrogant boy who learned the need for humility. He manages to spout the nonsense of age-old wisdom as the shifu and make it feel like good advice. It’s also interesting to see Derek Kwok evolve as a character from annoying jerk to a loyal friend to Supercool. More on this front would have improved the show. Unfortunately, featured Patrick Tan produces a flat, one-note performance that fails to convince, Niki Chow is wimpy, and the other characters are in the script to make up the numbers. So The King of Snooker or Zhuo Qiu Tian Wang or Cheuk Kau Tin Wong is potentially interesting if you don’t know anything about snooker and want to see Adam Cheng as the Old Master teaching everyone around him how to lead better lives. Otherwise, don’t bother.
The Beast Stalker or Ching Yan or 证人 (2008)
The Beast Stalker or Ching Yan or 证人 shows Hong Kong at its best and worst. It’s directed and jointly written by Dante Lam, the other scriptwriting credit going to Ng Wai Ling. At its heart, there’s a simple story of a serious criminal who orders the kidnap of the prosecuting lawyer’s daughter and instructs her to destroy the DNA evidence that would lead to his conviction. Needless to say, this whole plot depends on the lawyer not disclosing the kidnap and being willing to go to jail for obstructing justice — a fate that would separate her from her daughter in any event.
Well, always start with a bang, so they say, and this film is no exception. There’s a police raid planned by Sergeant Tong Fei (Nicholas Tse) to arrest Cheung, a major criminal wanted for a number of crimes including robbery and murder. The team divides into three and each group is supposed to co-ordinate their entry into the premises to capture the target. Unfortunately Michael (Derek Kwok Jing-Hung), leading one of the teams is late in breaking through a door and there’s a shooting with Sun (Liu Kai-Chi) narrowly escaping serious injury. Nevertheless, they capture Cheung who’s almost immediately rescued from police custody. Tong and Sun take off in pursuit. There’s a bad crash at a traffic junction, disabling all three vehicles involved. The criminals see another vehicle parked by the kerb. It belongs to a prosecuting lawyer, Ann / Gao Min (Zhang Jingchu) who’s standing beside it arguing with her estranged husband on her mobile phone. With Ann knocked to the ground, her car is driven away. Tong emerges from the wreckage of his vehicle and starts shooting. The fusillade of shots brings this second getaway car crashing to a halt. When the boot is opened, Tong discovers he has accidentally shot a little girl. The criminals found her on the back seat when they took the car and stuffed her inside the boot as they drove away. Cheung is in a coma. He’s rearrested but, after three months, he’s fit to be tried.
Nicholas Tse and Liu Kai-Chi on the trial of the kidnapper
We now enter the parallel dimension of coincidence. The prosecuting lawyer was the one standing by the kerb as Cheung took her car. The decision of the Hong Kong prosecuting authorities to allow her to continue in the case is therefore bizzare. Prosecutors must be seen to be dispassionate, yet she has every reason to manufacture evidence to ensure the conviction of the man indirectly responsible for the death of her daughter. At one level this is a wholly unnecessary complication. A plot to kidnap the child of a prosecutor would stand just as well with someone unconnected with the case. Ah, but the scriptwriters have a darker game to play. Our hero, Sergeant Tong, never formally returned to work, spending the three months trying to come to terms with his guilt. One of the ways in which he has passed the time is in befriending the dead girl’s sister, Ling (Wong Suet-yin). Indeed, Tong is at the school watching over her (he’s not the titular beast stalker, you understand) when the kidnap occurs. He’s knocked unconscious and the kidnapper, Hung Jing (Nick Cheung Ka-Fai) escapes. Now Tong has the emotional burden of having killed one daughter and failed to protect the other.
Zhang Jingchu as Ann deciding how loyal she is as a prosecutor
Although he has not been the best of squad leaders, Tong has retained the loyalty of those in the team. Even Michael (his cousin) who messed up, forgives him and they all agree to help him find the girl without formally alerting the police about the kidnapping. We therefore have the mother who’s pressured to taint the DNA evidence that will convict the villain. Then there’s the kidnapper. He’s losing his sight and trying to look after his wife Li (Miao Pu) who’s been injured. She’s incapable of speech, bedridden, and wholly dependent on Hung Jing to care for her. Tong and Sun, his main man who was injured in the original chase and now carrying a permanent leg injury, are now on the job. With Michael’s help to tap Ann’s mobile phone, they identify the city block where the girl is probably hidden. It’s now reached an interesting point.
This is a story about guilt and how you deal with it. Here’s a mother who would never have lost her first daughter if she had not stopped the car to argue with her husband on the phone. Although the policeman “innocently” pulled the trigger, she’s the “but for” cause of her daughter’s death. She cannot sleep at nights, blaming herself. Here’s a cop who feels so guilty at the mess he presided over, it’s as much as he can do to stop himself from committing suicide. Amazingly, there’s no internal investigation into this catastrophic sequence of events. No-one seems to want to consider whether Tong should be tried for manslaughter or suffer any kind of penalty. He’s just left on his own for three months.
Nick Cheung and Nicholas Tse fight for the gun
As to the kidnapper, Hung Jing, he’s also carrying a burden of guilt. In another completely unnecessary backstory, the scriptwriters decided that, if the other main characters are feeling guilty, Hung Jing should not be excused. I find this deeply annoying. In my own culture, this is everegging the pudding. It’s adding a contrivance in the form of a coincidence. Simply having him as a professional killer dragooned into a kidnapping would have been sufficient. Weighting him down with all this backstory is trying too hard to improve on an interconnected plot that’s already overly complex.
Dennis Kwok proving surprising loyal in helping out his cousin
As to the ending, the chase and fight goes on too long and, although the existing relationship between the policeman and the kidnapped girl does add a element, enabling him to encourage her and get results, it all drags with an overflow of self-pity from the two adult men involved. In the worst sense, it’s all terribly melodramatic and hammy.
So The Beast Stalker or Ching Yan or 证人 is good in part and, if you are inclined to take a benign view of an average Hong Kong thriller, it’s a not unenjoyable way of passing almost two hours.
For the record, Nick Cheung won the Best Actor in the Golden Horse Awards 2009 and the 15th Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards and the 28th Hong King Film Awards. Liu Kai-Chi won the Best Supporting Actor in the 28th Hong King Film Awards.
Other films by Nicholas Tse:
The Bullet Vanishes or Xiao shi de zi dan (2012)
Storm Warriors or Fung wan II (2009)
Treasure Inn or Cai Shen Ke Zhan (2011)
Overheard or Sit yan fung wan (2009)
It’s always interesting when you start off a film with images of rats finding a living for themselves amidst the rubbish thrown out by unthinking humans. Even in the lowest levels of society, there’s still a possibility of a life with rich pickings. Having fixed the image in our minds, we switch to three officers planting surveillance equipment in the offices of Feng Hua International. Perhaps they too will act like bottom feeders should rich scraps come their way. Such are the metaphors that flash our way in the first minutes of Overheard or Sit yan fung wan (2009) a police procedural out of Hong Kong dealing with a Commercial Crime Bureau investigation into suspected insider trading. This is Alan Mak and Felix Chong continuing their team effort to write and direct after their success with the Infernal Affairs Trilogy and before The Lost Bladesman or Guan Yun Chang.
The identity of the “mastermind” is unknown to the Bureau at the outset, but later proves to be Will Ma (Michael Wong) who has “integrity” as his firm’s slogan. He’s a high-profile figurehead for a major charity and very respectable. He’s also laundering money for drug lords. No-one has ever been able to pin anything criminal on him. Because Kelvin Lee Kwong (Alex Fong) believes the best chance of collecting evidence against the lower-level conspirators is at night, the best three surveillance operatives are scheduled for the night shift. Yet each of the three has “issues”.
Lau Cheng Wan has eyes and ears everywhere
Inspector Johnny Leung (Lau Cheng Wan) leads the team of three and is best friends with Kelvin, his immediate boss. Unfortunately, he’s sleeping with Kelvin’s wife, Mandy Yam (Zhang Jingchu). They are unofficially separated. Kelvin had an affair, but hopes to patch up the marriage. This gets complicated when Kelvin asks Johnny to install surveillance equipment in the ex-matrimonial home to identify the suspected new lover. The other two members of the team are Gene Yeung (Louis Koo) and Max Lam (Daniel Wu). Gene’s son has cancer and he needs money to pay for life-saving treatment. Max is marrying into a rich family and his future father-in-law has the Police Commissioner as a golf buddy. Max doesn’t feel he fits in, particularly since his future father-in-law wants him to quit work as a police officer and work for him at a higher salary. Having his own money would make him feel more brave.
Lau Cheng Wan, Daniel Wu and Louis Koo test the extent of their mutual loyalty
When Gene picks up an inside tip on an expected rise in share price, he talks Max into deleting the record so they can cash in. Johnny works out what they plan but, when they plead with him, he steps back. Unfortunately, many in the office overhear the buy-order and they join in. This looks suspicious to the stock exchange regulator who suspends dealing in the shares. This leaves the actual insider dealers with a problem. They don’t know what went wrong with their own plan to inflate the price. They believe one of their number is welching on the deal and so decide to kill him. Our police officers are, of course, listening in. They intervene to prevent the murder. They are, after all, police officers. Then the exchange regulators take all the surveillance files, suspecting market manipulation by the Commercial Crime Bureau itself.
However, you look at it, this has boiled up into a nicely balanced situation. As a result of their purchases, Gene and Max have enough money to leave the country. Should they run, or should they stay and try to survive? The “bad guys” are also deeply suspicious. They need to clean house.
Zhang Jingchu and Lau Cheng Wan proving there's always a price to pay
At its heart, this is a story about personal and professional loyalty tested by greed. The three selected for the night watch have been through thick and thin together. Even though Johnny knows he should stop them from breaking their trust as police officers, he recognises their need for money. He thinks the situation is containable and looks the other way. Johnny is also conflicted in his relationship with Kelvin. Betrayal of his friend is eating away at him and he’s apprehensive at what Kelvin will do when he discovers the relationship with Mandy. When it all comes unglued, everyone’s relationships are under strain. Louis Koo and Daniel Wu do enough in their roles to engage our sympathies. Even though they are corrupt, their weakness in the face of such temptation is understandable. Who among us is so confident we would not also try to profit? However, the central role proves to be Johnny. Lau Cheng Wan does well in his role to keep everything in balance. He’s more honest and a better police officer than many of those around him. This does not mean he’s above breaking the law. In a good cause, he upholds his values as an officer no matter what it takes.
I’m less than convinced by the ending. It seems a feeble attempt to abandon the more honest approach in depicting the human failings of individuals and substitute a broader-based institutional corruption. I can understand that film-makers may be uncomfortable with the idea of allowing villains to escape punishment, but this ending does no favours to the Hong Kong police. There are far better ways of seeing justice done. That said, this is one of the better police procedurals to come out of Hong King in recent years and it’s worth your while to track down and watch Overheard or Sit yan fung wan.
For a review of the sequel, see Overheard 2 or Sit yan fung wan 2.
Other films featuring Lau Ching Wan:
The Bullet Vanishes or Xiao shi de zi dan
The Great Magician
Life Without Principle
Mad Detective or San taam (2007)
Overheard 2
The Men of Justice or Fa Wang Qun Ying — review of episodes 21- 35
Continuing on from our major climax in episode 20, we’re back with the more routine stuff in The Men of Justice or Fa Wang Qun Ying. Ben (Kenneth Chan) has become increasingly concerned he should somehow atone for defending high-profile criminals, and is therefore taking cases on a pro bono basis. Hence, he defends one of the support staff from his chambers accused of impersonating a police officer, finds a defence in provocation for a karate expert with testicular cancer, and helps an illegal immigrant who gets arrested so that he can get free medical treatment.
Patrick (William So) continues to get into even deeper trouble, first with this wacky woman played by Lulu Ng who has now moved into his home, and then in another possible act of sexual misbehaviour, this time in a public toilet. Poor guy. He’s forever on the brink of disaster.
Kenneth Chan, Lawrence Ng and William So enjoying a moment in their favourite watering hole
Joe (Lawrence Ng) now tries to find a middle course with Joyce (Cynthia Ho). She’s recovered from the overdose and he’s trying to hold everything at a level of friendship, hoping this will avoid any repeat of the apparent suicide attempt. When there’s a second overdose, the hospital makes a different diagnosis, leaving Joe with a difficult choice.
Maggie (Amy Chan) and Henry have not been talking about Sandy’s behaviour, but there does come a point where a more conservative Henry does feel he can no longer stay silent. This is not to say Sandy has been uncontroversial, for example, announcing she would like a sex change operation.
We continue interesting social issues like whether schoolboy bullies can or should be prosecuted if they kill their victim, whether an exorcism that “accidentally” kills a man possessed because of an undisclosed heart condition is homicide. Equally, whether disabled riders in electric wheelchairs who race each other along pavements should be liable if a child steps out in front of the leader and is killed. There’s also good evidence that the fat detective played by Lam Suet framed a man for murder and then tried to get him locked up again for assault immediately after he had been released.
Amy Chan without the horsehair wig
The major criminal continues his reign, more confident now he’s escaped the first major trial against him. In this second set of episodes, we see his roving eye get him into trouble with his girlfriend who feels vulnerable to loss should her sugar daddy disappear. Yeung Wai Sam (Jackie Lui), our undercover operative, is now more formally working the criminal side of the fence, but feels insecure despite the deal he thinks he’s done with his leader. All this is sporadically rumbling along in the background when the girlfriend pays for a hit on our kingpin. She immediately admits her role so her life is going to be short as the kingpin’s father swears revenge. This finally gives us the chance for some continuous rather than intermittent action. Our attention switches to the sexual and investigative tension between Madam Winnie (Pinky Cheung) and Sam. There’s no opportunity for romance scorned in this series. More deaths follow in a slow build up to an increasingly bloody climax.
All of this signals the continuing problems with the structure of the narrative. It’s an unfortunate collision between the real and the unreal. The individual cases continue to be interesting social commentary on life in Hong Kong. I have the sense these should be the real focus of the show. But to keep the plotting within safer political waters, all this is defused by increasingly absurd romantic melodrama. Taking Patrick as an example, it’s not unknown for men to be socially accident prone. We’re all human after all. But this character is written in a completely unreal way. He cannot be the boring lawyer his wife remembers if he behaves like this. Similarly, Joe has one girlfriend leave him and come back dead (possibly a suicide). Then he is stalked by another who is more clearly mentally unbalanced. Ben avoids social contact because he fears blackmail. All the characters in this show have weaknesses and problems at the heart of their lives. Although we don’t expect everyone to be boring, this is elevating the melodrama to such unreal levels that it undermines the credibility of the characterisations. I believed in CSI’s Gil Grissom because he was the ultimate nerd who created the niche he wanted to occupy. But this series has one of its CSI staff, perhaps recovering as an alcoholic, moonlighting on catching serial killers. This is when not performing autopsies and not being the alternate love interest for Joe. Indeed, her not being Joe’s girlfriend produces Joyce’s second suicide attempt. The script writers are trying too hard to create as many crises as possible with only a few characters available. This requires a heightened set of features for each person. So our fat detective is socially on the verge of sexually harassing every female he meets, generally appearing somewhat stupid, while having a nephew killed and his brother tried for homicide. No stereotyping there.
Jackie Lui working undercover
Despite all this, there’s a level of convergence and some degree of closure as we approach the final episodes. Ben slowly grows more comfortable with what it means to be a lawyer who makes some of his money by representing hardened criminals. Patrick is finally allowed to escape from the wacky one and, barring future accidents where he may be accused of yet more sexual peccadillos, he can look forward to a quieter life. Winnie grows increasingly concerned that the criminal justice system is broken and, when she tries to take the law into her own hands, ends up in hospital. Despite trying to maintain emotional distance, Joe is linked to Joyce who’s fading away fast in front of his eyes. When she dies, Joe is overcome and, like Winnie, decides he has had enough with systems that wait for clear-cut evidence before being able to act. The most interesting end comes for Queenie (Joey Meng) who may have found someone with whom she can end her life (played by Marco Ngai). The most boring end comes for Maggie who seems as though she’s going to end up with Henry, the ultimately “safe” pair of hands. This from a woman who can manipulate her position to help a Judge reach some level of peace with his family and give a senior lawyer a chance to avoid conviction for homicide. Henry has more on his plate than he realises.
Overall, The Men of Justice or Fa Wang Qun Ying is one of the better serials out of Hong Kong. Although it pulls its punches a little bit, this second set of episodes has a more gritty feel than the first and, although the romantic entanglements are somewhat tiresome, the series ends with a quite pleasing moment as our three male heroes walk into a police station to resolve a minor problem.
For the review of the first twenty episodes, see The Men of Justice or Fa Wang Qun Ying — review of episodes 1 – 20.
A Pillowcase of Mystery or Shi Gong Qi An
As a film or television company, you look at investment in backlot with some degree of caution. If you’re really going to spend all that money in building a generic period city/town, then all your scriptwriters and directors must be put to the grindstone to maximise the use of these “expensive” sets. So it is we come to all these programs in which we see real drama, romantic drama or straight comedy playing out against the same background of buildings, slightly redressed and/or repainted between each new series. This represents a major challenge to our valiant scriptwriters who must continually reinvent the wheel with plots to cover up the unchanging locale.
In A Pillowcase of Mystery, TVB has gathered a cast from its repertory company and, led by the indefatigable Bobby Au Yeung as Sze Sai-lun we have a detective, supernatural fantasy, romantic comedy. As I said, when you get instructions from above, you mix as many elements together as possible to keep the resulting program fresh. For Western readers, I should explain that period Chinese pillowcases were effectively firm or solid headrests, and not the variously shaped cushions stuffed with feathers our richer ancestors enjoyed as a support for their heads. In this case, we have a small shaped support, made out of china with vents at both ends to allow a free flow of cooling air to pass through.
Bobby Au Yeung dressed like a box of chocolates but stood up at the wedding
So what’s the plot? Sze Sai-lun is appointed as Magistrate to Kong-do County. He’s a fairly worthless mother’s boy who gets a headache whenever asked to think. This may be a result of a head injury when young or it’s a defence mechanism to avoid work. Anyway, no matter what the reason, he’s remarkably self-satisfied and, thanks to his determined mother, he gets ahead and, perhaps more importantly, is kept in line by a wife and two concubines. As is almost always the case when it comes to TVB serials, there’s absolutely no sign of any sexual activity, particularly when there are noodles around, and no children to slow down the “action” onscreen — we do get a parrot at one stage, the only breach of the rule first stated by W. C. Fields that stars should never work with children or animals.
We quickly see Sze Sai-lun is useless as an investigating Magistrate, relying on his head constable to keep everyone in order. Except, he so publicly drops the ball when confronted by the theft of some steamed buns, followed by the apparent suicide of the man accused, not even his constables can save his face. There’s some amiable slapstick as Sze Sai-lun blunders around, accidentally setting fire to different parts of the set — the really big fire burning down a hut just outside the city to avoid damaging the main sets. Out in the countryside, he’s running away from further shame and embarrassment, when he falls down a bank and hits his head on a china pillowcase. When a drop of his blood spills from his nose on to the pillow, he meets the Pillow Spirit played by Lo Hoi Pang. So begins a game. The Spirit is not allowed to tell our Magistrate whodunnit, but can give him clues. We get to see or hear some oblique hints, and watch as our not completely brainless Magistrate tries to work out what they mean and solve the cases. At first, it looks as though the only way our hero can contact the Spirit is to knock himself out. Fortunately, the scriptwriters see this repeated joke would soon grow tiresome and sleep is quickly accepted as a substitute.
Benny Chan and Tavia Yeung share a love of snacks on a stick
The first mystery of the buns allows us to meet the people of the town including Mai Heung-yung played by Kenix Kwok as the court’s local organising power behind the throne, her foster mother Siu Kau-leung played by Mary Hon and brother Wong Tin-bah played by Benny Chan. The solution is actually pleasingly gruesome even though the statistical chance of the evidence being in the remaining bun is vanishingly small. As we move into the second mystery, Sze Sai-lun’s god-sister arrives. She’s Princess Tsanggak Ming-chu played by Tavia Yeung and there’s quickly chemistry between her and Wong Tin-bah, setting up later conflict when her father arrives to announce his choice of a ghastly husband, thereby provoking an elopement. Anyway, the second narrative arc involves the Golden Fox, a famous thief. The head constable has been chasing him for years which is why he never settled down to marry Siu Kau-leung. This provokes a general mash-up when the question of an old armed robbery resurfaces. The victim was the family of the second concubine and the man accused and imprisoned was Wong Tin-bah.
Kenix Kwok as a modern vamp
So that all the right people can be set on the track for a successful romantic engagement, Sze Sai-lun and the Pillow Spirit must prove Wong Tin-bah innocent and link ants to a chronic case of diabetes which, if nothing else is ingenious. However, when it appears the Golden Fox may have links to the family of the Princess, everything gets further confused as is always necessary. The path of true love can never be allowed to run smooth. Also sneaking up on us is the real relationship between Sze Sai-lun and Mai Heung-yung. Unlike his wife and current concubines who are either mousey or fairly unlovable, Mai Heung-yung is a positive force for good in the Magistrate’s life, except she’s kidnapped on the day of their wedding.
At this point, the scriptwriters suddenly wake from their slumbers and produce a nice variation on the theme. Up to this point, our Pillow Spirit has been restricted to brief meetings with our Magistrate on the spirit plane. Now he begins to appear in the real world. This liberation allows us yet more flashbacks to show everyone’s relationships in a new light. Even spirits deserve their own backstories. What keeps the serial interesting is the increasing access to the ghost as the question of who was responsible for a past massacre interferes with current relationships. Mai Heung Yung and Wong Tin Pak get into yet more trouble, Siu Kau-leung is killed by assassins, and what should have been a happy marriage for our Magistrate comes completely unglued as it appears his father may have ordered the massacre. It’s all resolved with much drama and a surprising number of children (obviously they changed to a better brand of noodles), leaving Kenix Kwok to pick up prize as Best Actress in a Leading Role.
A Pillowcase of Mystery is what you would call a light confection, a dish of sweet ingredients spun out to just the point where it might all become just a touch tiresome and then pulling back. At twenty episodes it almost outstays its welcome but Bobby Au Yeung manages to keep smiling and the scriptwriters contrive just enough interest in the mystery elements to keep us watching. Although, truth be told, Sze Sai-lun jumping out of the coffin to make the arrest is hilariously over-the-top.
For those of you interested in such details, Benny Chan demonstrates his versatility and sings the theme song.
Thinking about books 