Made in Hong Kong; or, The Days of Being Dangerous Mom was right when she said that everything is predestined. Ever since Sylvester picked up those two letters, bad things have been happening one after the other. Weird things that no one can explain! They just happen. I have been meaning to watch Fruit Chan’s The Handover Trilogy (Made in Hong Kong (1997), The Longest Summer (1998), Little Cheung (1999)) for a few years now, but just recently, I decided to give it a go. In this review, I take a look at the first film of the trilogy, Made in Hong Kong, which is actually the first independent movie (made out of leftover film tape) released in Hong Kong after the transfer of power from the United Kingdom to China.
Release Info
Directed by: Fruit ChanStarring: Sam Lee, Neiky Yim Hui-Chi, Wenders Li, Amy Tam Ka-Chuen
Language: CantoneseOriginal Title: 香港製造 Runtime: 108 min
Synopsis The story of the film focuses on youngsters who are social outcasts. The main protagonist, Autumn Moon (Sam Lee), is a good for nothing misfit who collects debts for the triads. He frequently protects his friend, Sylvester (Wenders Li), who is mentally-challenged. Together, they meet Ping (Neiky Yim Hui-Chi), a resident of a public rental housing estate. The trio accidentally gets into possession of letters written by a certain Susan (Amy Tam Ka-Chuen), a high school girl who committed suicide. The friends try to deliver the letters to respected addressees. At the same time, Autumn Moon is tired of being a loser and makes an attempt to become someone in Hong Kong on the verge of change.
Young and Depressed In Made in Hong Kong, Fruit Chan explores the lives of people at the very moment of great political transformation. The British are leaving and the Chinese have not arrived yet, the people of Hong Kong are left to themselves and they are actually deprived of identity.
Autumn Moon tries to do anything in his life, literally anything, like becoming a killer for the triads, but he is unable to kill anyone. Fruit Chan stated in an interview that Moon desperately wants to live but he is incapable of living in such a world, Ping also wants to live, but she suffers from cancer, Sylvester is unable to live because of his limitations, whereas Susan kills herself because she can’t think for herself.
In a desperate attempt to avenge the passing of one of his friends, Moon confronts the triad leader, and while pointing a gun at him says: “I remember that you said that the world is now ruled by the young. Now, I’ll show you!,” and he kills the gangster. In her essay about Made in Hong Kong, the author Vivienne Chow thinks that this one scene is the prophetic foreshadowing of the attitudes represented by modern-day protesters in Hong Kong.
With Made In Hong Kong, the director successfully provided an insightful study of youth living at the margins of society in the time preceding the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong, but he also managed to emphasise that Hong Kong is essentially a parentless state. Loss of identity takes place because it is neither British nor Chinese. The only way for Hong Kong to move on is to forget about its ambiguous roots.
It has to be noted that director Fruit Chan really has an eye for visuals. One could think that there is nothing appealing in small apartments, huge high-rises with courtyards, or cemeteries, yet the dream-like atmosphere of Made in Hong Kong combined with these images is truly captivating.
With regard to performances, Fruit Chan worked on each entry of The Handover Trilogy with nonprofessional actors and actresses. Allegedly, it took them months of rigorous rehearsals before the crew could start shooting. Nevertheless, all of the performers involved did a fine job. In fact, the movie marks the debut of Sam Lee who, thanks to his memorable performance of Moon, went on to have a successful career. He also appeared in Fruit Chan’s subsequent movies.
Recommendations I definitely recommend Made in Hong Kong if you want to experience some Hong Kong-related food for thought. My advice is that you should grab the HD release of the movie, instead of a standard DVD. In order to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the film, L’Immagine Ritrovata made a 4K restoration of the film which looks absolutely outstanding. I hope that I will be able to review the remaining entries of The Handover Trilogy soon.
Overall score: 8/10
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Disclaimer:
The following article contains spoilers for movies A Better Tomorrow(1986), A
Better Tomorrow II (1987), The Killer (1989), Bullet in the Head (1990), and Hard Boiled (1992).
Synopses for the films were reappropriated from my individual blog
reviews. John Woo’s comedies from the 1970s and his Hollywood
blockbusters do not constitute the analytical subject matter of the
text.
I
wanted the mood to resemble a dream, like they have something to hope
for. It’s a dream for the killer. No matter where I am, what I love to
do is watch people’s faces. Even when walking on a street, I also love
to watch different faces. I wonder about the feeling. It’s very
interesting, you’re watching a different face and getting a different
feeling. ~ John Woo
Enthusiasts of Asian Cinema often hail John Woo as the master
of action movies packed with guns, explosions, and massive set pieces.
The director in question, however, distances himself from this title. It
goes without saying that his most popular Hong Kong productions from
the 1980s and the 1990s constitute idiosyncratic viewing experiences,
but what makes them so unique, especially to Western viewers? Let's
explore this issue in the herein editorial. In order to gain greater
understanding of John Woo's movies, we need to take a look at the life
of the film auteur himself. Woo was born as Wu Yu-seng on the 1st of
May, 1946 in Guangzhou, China. His father was a teacher and a literary
scholar, while the mother did manual labour. Because of the ruthless
rule of Mao Zedong after the war, the family had to flee to Hong Kong in
order to avoid persecution for their Christian background. In a new
land, they experienced a great deal of hardships as well: the father
suffered from tuberculosis while 3-year-old Woo had to undergo a spine
operation. It was not until five years later when he regained the
ability to walk properly. It was in the childhood years when he had
found consolation in religion and was planning to become a Christian
minister.
John Woo giving instructions on the set of Hard Boiled.
(Un)surprisingly, shy and reserved Woo decided to change
his career choice when he discovered the magic of cinema. He felt deeply
passionate about the French New Wave (the movies of Jean-Pierre
Melville, in particular) and Westerns. The ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid about two comrades trying to shoot their way through
against all odds engraved itself deeply into the mind of a future
filmmaker. Nevertheless, it was not like Woo entered the industry
with immediate success. He had a steady work in the 1970s, directing
standard kung fu flicks and comedies, but he felt increasingly
displeased with these endeavours because of the lack of creative
control. It was in the mid-1980s when a colleague and fellow
collaborator, Tsui Hark provided Woo with a funding to realise his movie
ideas.
A Better Tomorrow is a film that turned Woo into a
respected filmmaker and jettisoned its leading man, Chow Yun-fat, into
stardom. This is the classic good guys vs. the bad guys story set within
the context of Hong Kong triads. Nevertheless, if we look beyond
gunfights, gangsters, and 80s aesthetics, we will see that A Better
Tomorrow is about the restoration of the Confucian family structure. Sun
Tse-Ho (Ti Lung) is a trusted triad member who deals with distributing
counterfeit dollars. His loyal helper and best friend is Mark (Chow
Yun-fat) who is a cool-hand shooter. On the other hand, there is Kit
(Leslie Cheung), Ho’s younger brother who joined the police academy and
intends to become an officer. Ho supports his brother’s career choice,
but does not reveal to him his real line of business. Ho decides that he
will make one more distributing deal in Taiwan and then leave the triad
for good. He travels there with a new guy called Shing (Waise Lee);
however, all hell breaks loose and Ho is betrayed. In order to allow
Shing to escape he turns himself over to the Taiwanese police. Three
years later, Ho gets out of prison and he is determined to start a new
life. He comes back to Hong Kong only to find that Kit (now a police
inspector) does not want to speak to him and that Mark is a crippled
beggar. Shing became the new leader of the triad and he offers Ho
reinstatement in the organisation. Ho refuses, yet he quickly realises
that his brother is in danger.
Essentially, Ho, the main protagonist
of the story, restores his fraternal bond with Kit, who is at the
opposite side of the law. Nevertheless, this process of restoration
cannot be completed without a sacrifice. It is the character of Mark (a
spiritual brother of Ho) who brings two estranged men together in the
bombastic finale that takes away his life. Brothers united again take
matters into their own hands and execute Shing, the ruthless villain.
Still, Ho is aware that he has to pay the price for his actions, and
thus allows himself to be arrested by Kit. John Woo manages to evoke
the bromance relationship because he puts emphasis on honour and
integrity of his male characters. Just as in Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Arthurian legends, men with a steadfast morality compass do
whatever it takes to restore order. This is what matters the most, not
even a love for a woman can overshadow this because the female figure
always plays a secondary part in the storyline.
We see the recurrence
of this bromance pattern yet again in A Better Tomorrow II, but the
configuration of characters is different this time. Sung Tse-Ho (Ti
Lung) serves his time in prison after the events from the original film.
The police offer him early parole in exchange for doing a spy job on
Ho’s ex-mentor, Lung Sei (Dean Shek), who is suspected of
counterfeiting. Ho agrees when his brother’s wife Jackie (Emily Chu)
tells him that Kit (Leslie Cheung) is working on the case. Ho reunites
with his brother and they decide to work together, but soon after, Lung
is framed for murder and he flees to New York. Ho and Kit try to protect
his daughter, but she is killed by the triads. Upon hearing devastating
news, Lung loses his sanity. Meanwhile, it turns out that Mark had a
twin brother called Ken... (Chow Yun-fat) who also happens to live in
New York. After Ho’s phone call, Ken finds Lung and nurses him back to
health while attempting to flee from assassins sent by the triads.
Eventually, Ken, Lung, Ho and Kit reunite together in Hong Kong and they
decide to take down the man who betrayed Lung and took over his
organisation, Ko Ying-pui (Kwan Shan). Regardless of the sequel’s
dubious quality (making things more explosive and coming with an
outrageous excuse to bring back Chow Yun-fat), the story-arc of Ho is
extremely tragic here. The man paid his dues from the first movie, and
does not want to get involved in crime undertakings again, but he has to
because his friend, Lung, was betrayed. On top of that, Kit, his dear
brother, is brutally killed at the end of the second act. Kit’s wife
serves no other purpose but to underline her husband’s chivalry in a
scene where the two are talking over the phone.
Kit’s death
subsequently pushes Ho to go all out against the triads. In the film’s
finale, we see the haunting image of Ho, Ken, and Lung alive but badly
injured after storming the villain’s house and fighting masses of
expandable baddies. The order has been restored but at what cost? After
a disappointing reception of A Better Tomorrow II, Woo had a falling
out with Hark who went to single-handedly make A Better Tomorrow III.
Woo, on the other hand, went to shoot his dream project called The Killer, a tribute to the cinematic style of Jean-Pierre Melville
and Martin Scorsese.
Ah Jong (Chow Yun-fat) is an assassin for hire.
His long-time friend, Fung (Chu Kong), frequently serves as the
middleman when offers are being made. During one of the assignments,
Jong accidentally damages the eyes of the singer, Jennie (Sally Yeh).
Guilt-ridden Jong looks after Jennie and tries to gather money necessary
for her surgery. After killing a high-profile mobster, Jong is betrayed
by his employers who want him dead. To make matters worse, the police
detective Li Ying (Danny Lee) is on his trail as well.
In The Killer,
Woo depicts three sets of male friendships: 1) between two killers
(Jong and Fung); 2) between two cops (Li and Tsang) 3) between a killer
and a cop (Jong and Li). Although the affair with Jenny is the plot
device which drives the main protagonist in the story, the woman never
takes a center stage. She represents a disruption of the order;
therefore, Jong and Li unite in the film’s finale (almost like Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) to restore the order. However, sacrifices
have to be made.
That is to say, for bromance to take place, the two
characters have to lose their beloved friends. Sergeant Tsang dies in
the line of duty while investigating Jong, while Fung gives up his life
to get the money for Jong from the triads. The death of the latter
character is especially emotional and it reminded me greatly about the
relationship between knight Roland and his loyal paladin Olivier de
Vienne as described in the 11th-century epic poem The Song of Roland.
Evidently, Woo did not take inspiration from the poem, but he replicated
the archetypes of chivalric heroes in action which are present in
literary traditions of the Orient as well as the Occident. In the
final confrontation, the bro power between Jong and Li is so much over 9000 that they manage to defeat a whole army of triad lowlifes on their
own. Nevertheless, Jong loses his life in a stand-off against the
villain. Similarly to Ho in A Better Tomorrow, Jong has to atone for his
past sins, and he does so by saving Jennie in the church (Christian
imagery is extremely prominent in The Killer). The last moment between
Jong and Jennie, when the two can’t find each other because of their
blindness, eerily references Greek tragedies like Oedipus Rex or
Antigone. In the end, it is the cop who shoots the villain.
In 1990,
Woo turned his original idea for A Better Tomorrow III into a
stand-alone feature called Bullet in the Head. The movie tells the
story of three friends: Ben (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), Frank (Jacky Cheung),
and Paul (Waise Lee), who regularly brawl with gang members in Hong
Kong during the 1960s. Unfortunately, Frank accidentally kills one of
the mobsters and the friends decide to flee Hong Kong. They go to
Saigon, in order to work as smugglers in the ravaged by war Vietnam.
However, things do not go as planned and the protagonists find
themselves on the run, together with a hitman Luke (Simon Yam) and a
nightclub singer Sally (Yolinda Yam), from the Vietcong soldiers.
Eventually, Paul betrays his friends for a box of gold. Bullet in the
Head stands out of John Woo’s rich repertoire as not being just a
standard bullet-ballet flick. It is neither as fast paced as A Better
Tomorrow nor as spectacular as Hard Boiled. Nevertheless, the film’s
primary asset is a human drama set against the background of a harrowing
military conflict. John Woo reinvents the “bromance formula” known from
his other films by turning it into a war epic similar to Francis Ford
Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.
As in the previously discussed films, we
have the theme of betrayal. Waise Lee again (as in A Better Tomorrow)
plays a rotten individual who chooses wealth over his friends. What is
more, he cripples Frank in a brutal manner, which pushes Ben to seek
revenge. In addition, there is also a female character in-between the
three men, but her subplot is more of a passing vignette rather than a
proper story arc. That is not to say that the film is simply a
melodrama. Bullet in the Head is filled with magnificent action set
pieces (nightclub shootout) and wonderful David Lean-like sequences
involving large crowds of people (riots scenes the evoking Tiananmen
Square incident or Vietnam exodus scene). However, the real show stealer
is the final battle sequence involving the characters played by Tony
Leung and Waise Lee.
Similarly to medieval knights battling on
horses, we see the two characters ramming each other with cars.
Ultimately, Paul transforms into a Shakespearean lunatic (like Macbeth
or Hamlet) as he starts talking to Frank’s skull. It is at this moment
when Ben is able to avenge his friend by putting a bullet in Paul’s
head. The order has been restored once again, and Ben (in contrast to
previous protagonists) did not have to atone for his sins. He already
went to hell and back again. At the very end, we see him screaming in
despair and throwing away his gun… The year 1991 saw the release of
Once a Thief which appears to be a complete contradiction of John Woo’s
already established template of storytelling. In this instance, we
follow three orphaned siblings (Chow Yun-fat, Leslie Cheung, and Cherie
Chung) performing heist jobs for their mentor figure (Kenneth Tsang).
The movie feels like a side-project for Woo, something tonally lighter
with an amazing ensemble cast. It does not function well as a bromance
picture at all.
However, there came Hard Boiled in 1992, the very
last picture Woo made before his departure to Hollywood. Without a
doubt, Hard Boiled is a classic picture and a landmark of action cinema,
praised by the critics and film scholars, which still looks impressive
today. Nevertheless, I disagree with the claims that this film is Woo’s
finest directorial achievement. Naturally, it cemented his reputation as
the master of action genre and it also allowed him to break away from
the label of a guy who can only make gangster epics, as this film
definitely glamorises the police. Still again, apart from mind-blowing
stunts, great performances, and jazz music score, Hard Boiled suffers
greatly in terms of a screenplay. Police officer “Tequila” Yuen (Chow
Yun-fat) tries to eradicate the gun smuggling business which is being
controlled by rival triad syndicates. However, this results in a brutal
war between the police and the triads. In the meantime, Superintendent
Pang (Philip Chan) has placed his own trusted man, Tony (Tony Leung
Chiu-Wai), as an undercover cop in one of the syndicates. Tequila is not
aware of this and he quickly escalates the situation with one of the
triad bosses, Wong (Anthony Wong Chau-sang), while relying on info from
his own informant in the syndicate. Soon after, Tequila crosses paths
with Tony and learns about his true identity. The two cops discover that
Wong has a huge weapons warehouse beneath Maple Group Hospital. They
step into action, but the psychotic gangster does not let himself get
busted that easily as he takes all patients hostage at the hospital.
Believe
me, there are lots of plot holes and downright illogical behaviour of
the characters in this movie, but the general bromance premise is still
preserved. Tequila and Tony join forces in order to take down a (yet
another) archetypal villain. The female figure played by Teresa Mo is
unimportant in the face of spectacular shootouts performed by Tequila
and Tony. These protagonists receive perhaps the best ending out of all
the heroes of Woo’s movies: After defeating the villain, Tequila remains
a police officer and Tony stops being a mole in the triads. Allegedly,
John Woo and his team had many difficulties with developing the film
(for example, the original plot about Tony Leung poisoning children was
dropped). Then, the screenwriter Barry Wong passed away halfway through
the rewrites and the teahouse raid was filmed without any script
whatsoever. Consequently, I do not regard Hard Boiled as John Woo’s
“all time best of the best”. This status rightfully belongs to Bullet in
the Head. However, Hard Boiled is still a wonderful fun as well as a
great lesson in filmmaking. In a way, this film is Woo’s love letter to
chivalric/bromance cinema. In a commentary for The Killer, the director
stated that the righteous characters played by Chow Yun-fat are an
expression of his own personality. Whenever we see Chow on the screen,
Woo is there too. In Hard Boiled, we get the culmination of this concept
as Chow Yun-fat and John Woo share the screen together for the first
and only time (Woo’s plays a cameo role of Tequila’s friend in a bar).
All
things considered, John Woo’s movies should not be categorised
exclusively as loud and flashy flicks made only for people suffering
from empathy deficiency. On the contrary, these are modern morality
tales, tragic visual poems which reinvent and reiterate universal values
about men of justice putting things right. This is a true bromance at
its finest. This was my brief trip across John Woo’s movies. Do you
have your own favourite bromance flick? Please let me know your thoughts
in the comments and thank you for reading.
References: John Woo The
Films (Second Edition) by Kenneth E. Hall * John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow
by Karen Fang * John Woo’s Bullet in the Head by Tony Williams * John
Woo’s The Killer by Kenneth E. Hall.
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In this world, not everybody is untrustworthy. Just
how awesome is John Woo? The director is obviously no stranger to this
blog (see my other reviews here), but I can’ get over the fact that such
a visionary gets a bad rap only because of his Hollywood follies. We
have already discussed Woo’s magnum opus Bullet in the Head (1990), but
this time allow me to take a look at the filmmaker’s another highly
acclaimed picture, The Killer (1989).
Release Info
Directed by: John WooStarring: Chow Yun-fat, Chu Kong, Danny Lee, Kenneth Tsang
Language: CantoneseOriginal Title: 喋血雙雄 Runtime: 110 min
Synopsis Ah Jong (Chow
Yun-fat) is an assassin for hire. His long-time friend, Fung (Chu Kong),
frequently serves as the middleman when offers are being made. During
one of the assignments, Jong accidentally damages the eyes of the singer,
Jennie (Sally Yeh). Guilt-ridden Jong looks after Jennie and tries to
gather money necessary for her surgery. After killing a high-profile
mobster, Jong is betrayed by his employers who want him dead. To make
matters worse, the police detective Li Ying (Danny Lee) is on his trail
as well.
Battles Without Honour The pre-production period of The
Killer was quite an ordeal for John Woo. Allegedly, Tsui Hark was
convinced that Woo ruined A Better Tomorrow II (1987) and tried to fire
him from his production company, Film Workshop. Whenever Woo pitched a
movie idea, it was immediately rejected.
It was not until Chow
Yun-fat agreed to play the lead role that the project received financing
and was given a green-light. Although Tsui Hark is listed as the
producer of the film in the opening credits, his actual involvement
remains unconfirmed (at that time, he was already gearing up to make A
Better Tomorrow III with Chow).
To put it in layman’s terms, The
Killer is the quintessential John Woo flick. Action, drama, and gun
violence are cranked up to the max, but each cinematic aspect serves its
purpose within the story (in contrast to films made by Woo’s copycats in America).
The director stated that he was influenced by such movies as Narazumono
(1964), Le Samourai (1967), Mean Streets (1973). His aim was to present
an image of a romantic (anti-)hero who forges a friendship with an
individual at the opposite side of the law, a police officer.
Needless
to say, The Killer functions perfectly as the ultimate bromance flick.
Some critics claim that the story is borderline homoerotic, but I
believe this claim is too much of an exaggeration. Woo masterfully pays
homage to classic tales about chivalric men joining forces to vanquish
evil and perform a good deed. All of his early “bullet ballet” movies
are tragic visual poems, but The Killer is the most stylised one with
its gripping cinematography, outstanding settings, and
vibraphone-influenced music score.
With regard to performances, Chow
Yun-fat, as always, knocks it out of the park as the charismatic
protagonist. Danny Lee is just as awesome as the righteous detective who
eventually helps Jong. Sally Yeh is great as the damsel in distress,
but she does not have much screen time. In addition, the wonderful
supporting roles of Chu Kong and Kenneth Tsang cannot be forgotten.
Shing Fui-on provides a standard performance of a crazy triad boss.
Recommendations If
you want to check out John Woo at the peak of his auteur style, then I
recommend The Killer. My all-time favourite Woo movie will always remain
Bullet in the Head, but The Killer is close second. It’s a great,
fast-paced tale with lots of tears and tons of explosions. It is a
steadfast progenitor of such magnificent films as Luc Besson’s La Femme
Nikita (1990) and Leon: The Professional (1994). My old DVD disc from
Criterion comes with a booklet essay, theatrical trailer, deleted scenes,
and a commentary from John Woo and executive producer Terence Chang.
Overall score: 8/10
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In a desperate attempt to avenge the passing of one of his friends, Moon confronts the triad leader, and while pointing a gun at him says: “I remember that you said that the world is now ruled by the young. Now, I’ll show you!,” and he kills the gangster. In her essay about Made in Hong Kong, the author Vivienne Chow thinks that this one scene is the prophetic foreshadowing of the attitudes represented by modern-day protesters in Hong Kong.
With regard to performances, Fruit Chan worked on each entry of The Handover Trilogy with nonprofessional actors and actresses. Allegedly, it took them months of rigorous rehearsals before the crew could start shooting. Nevertheless, all of the performers involved did a fine job. In fact, the movie marks the debut of Sam Lee who, thanks to his memorable performance of Moon, went on to have a successful career. He also appeared in Fruit Chan’s subsequent movies. 
