Money, morals and mayhem
HK filmmaker Ringo Lam is back in action.
Wild City Director: ringo Lam Cast: Louis Koo, Shawn Yue, Joseph Chang, tong Liya, Michael tse, Yuen Qiu
IT’S great to see that Hong Kong filmmaker Ringo Lam has finally found the inspiration to get back to making movies.
Lauded for his gangster thriller City On Fire ( 1987), which inspired Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs ( 1992), Lam has been on too long a hiatus while his peers John Woo and Tsui Hark have continued to make strides in Chinese- language cinema.
It’s been 12 long years since his last full- length feature ( Jean-Claude Van Damme’s In Hell), although Lam did come out of semi- retirement to direct a segment of the three- part 2007 portmanteau film Triangle with Tsui and Johnnie To.
Wild City starts off like any ordinary day for cop turned bar operator T- Man ( Louis Koo), who doesn’t realise the trouble he is inviting by helping out a drunken customer. He puts her up for the night with his stepmother Mona ( Yuen Qiu) and his cabbie stepbrother Chung ( Shawn Yue).
When Chung helps to tow away her Maserati, a gang of vicious Taiwanese thugs led by Blackie ( Joseph Chang) and his boss King ( Jack Kao) swoop in.
It turns out that there is a stolen suitcase stuffed with cash and gleaming gold bars in the trunk of the Maserati. And the damsel in distress is Yun ( Tong Liya), a solicitor from mainland China, who was drowning her sorrows after realising that her slimy Hong Kong lawyer boyfriend George ( Michael Tse) tried to pimp her out to a mainland tycoon to secure a gaming licence for a hotelier client.
Yun flees with the money, leaving T- Man and Chung to take on Blackie’s gang, which has taken Mona hostage. Now, the brothers have to save both their mother and their newfound friend while setting a trap for the big fish behind this mess.
It may seem surreal initially but of course, the two brothers take being good Samaritans to the next level by putting their lives on the line for someone they just met. Even if our heroes are ordinary folk who find it in themselves to go out of their way to do the right thing. Lam portrays them as inherently flawed characters who fight to overcome greed and temptation – a plus point for a movie that is headed for the mainland market.
Koo, wearing white throughout the movie, is the righteous hero who is not the least bit interested in the ill- gotten wealth. In his view, “money is just printed paper that is over- valued”. He even spouts cool one- liners like “I believe you, but I don’t trust the money.”
A cops- and- robbers action- thriller with a difference, Wild City is a stylish noir flick with a poetic touch. We have the good guys in white and the bad guys in black, and lots of thrilling car chases and gun battles, all cleverly staged ( no CGI here).
The plot is merrily convoluted, just the way Asians like it. In short, money corrupts one’s morals and leads to mayhem. There is nothing subtle about the message here. But it is Chinese cinema, and symbolism tells half the story.
Having said that, Wild City is a worthy comeback for the veteran filmmaker, who just received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the New York Asian Film Festival last month.