It's 1988 and 1997 is looming... and even if it is never mentioned, the retrocession to China is everywhere in this movie.
It takes advantage of a vehicle for Chow Yun Fat, the John Woo generation of let's remember the glory of yesteryears codes of honor and pride, and Ti Lung, the Shaw brothers generation of clear cut manicheism and black and white morals, to generate a troubled twilight movie full of pathos and nihilism.
Hong Kong is drowning, the cops resent being on the losing side of a failing law and order, ambitions within a disintegrating power structure overtake integrity, even the OG coming out of a long jail sentence and falling to the ground to kiss it, fails to taste at first that this is not the country he had left behind. Westerners are basically rude tourists and smugglers trying to squeeze a quick butt or make a quick buck, the mainland is the source for violent unprincipled low life, and the heroes do not finish in a blaze of glory but rather in a haze of destruction and, ultimately jail.
Make no mistake this is a testosterone driven, hyper violent, bloody and full of bullet choreography. Chow Yun Fat, Ti Lung and Norman Chu you get plenty of that. But their actions more than honor driven are born from despair and pain.
One other way Sun Chung tells us times are at an end is through the treatment of women characters; they have a consistency rather rare in this genre of movies. Torn between her loyalty to her ganster former lover and her attraction to the cop with attitude, Penny is driven by actual tenderness and libido, not the usual fodder for abuse role devoted to young women in HK gangster genre. The wife of the older policeman is a pivotal presence of stability and family values, not the devoted house scrubbing table serving wound dressing servant too often portrayed in such films. And the fact that they both end up victims to the madness of men is a message from Sun Chung as to the loss of modernity he fears for Hong-Kong.
Sung Chu was born in Taiwan, this is is penultimate movie, in the early 90es he retired from directing, this is not a mindless action and pathos offering, it's a message and a farewell.
It takes advantage of a vehicle for Chow Yun Fat, the John Woo generation of let's remember the glory of yesteryears codes of honor and pride, and Ti Lung, the Shaw brothers generation of clear cut manicheism and black and white morals, to generate a troubled twilight movie full of pathos and nihilism.
Hong Kong is drowning, the cops resent being on the losing side of a failing law and order, ambitions within a disintegrating power structure overtake integrity, even the OG coming out of a long jail sentence and falling to the ground to kiss it, fails to taste at first that this is not the country he had left behind. Westerners are basically rude tourists and smugglers trying to squeeze a quick butt or make a quick buck, the mainland is the source for violent unprincipled low life, and the heroes do not finish in a blaze of glory but rather in a haze of destruction and, ultimately jail.
Make no mistake this is a testosterone driven, hyper violent, bloody and full of bullet choreography. Chow Yun Fat, Ti Lung and Norman Chu you get plenty of that. But their actions more than honor driven are born from despair and pain.
One other way Sun Chung tells us times are at an end is through the treatment of women characters; they have a consistency rather rare in this genre of movies. Torn between her loyalty to her ganster former lover and her attraction to the cop with attitude, Penny is driven by actual tenderness and libido, not the usual fodder for abuse role devoted to young women in HK gangster genre. The wife of the older policeman is a pivotal presence of stability and family values, not the devoted house scrubbing table serving wound dressing servant too often portrayed in such films. And the fact that they both end up victims to the madness of men is a message from Sun Chung as to the loss of modernity he fears for Hong-Kong.
Sung Chu was born in Taiwan, this is is penultimate movie, in the early 90es he retired from directing, this is not a mindless action and pathos offering, it's a message and a farewell.