Well, I missed the Grand Final parade on Friday
but I didn't miss not seeing the Adelaide supporters (better luck next year!).
On the same day, I also missed seeing the new Mainland pic YOUTH (Feng
Xiaogang, 2017) which had its release delayed by the Chinese government. But I
did manage to see the new Wong Jing production CHASING THE DRAGON, which stars
Donnie Yen and Andy Lau as two real-life characters from Hong Kong's underworld
during the 1960s and 70s.
Donnie Yen plays the infamous Chiu Chow gangster
Crippled Ho, and Lau is the notoriously corrupt HK police officer, Lee Rock.
The film is a mish-mash remake of the 1990s Canto gangster pics, TO BE NUMBER
ONE, and LEE ROCK. Yen gives an OK performance as the brutal crime kingpin but
he does seem miscast, as opposed to Lau who gives his best performance for
years as a scheming puppet master keeping the peace between the triad gangs and
the Hong Kong police, whilst allowing the illegal money from drugs,
prostitution, gambling and extortion to continue flooding in.
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| Donnie Yen, Chasing the Dragon |
Cineastes and fans of crime films won't miss
picking where CHASING THE DRAGON pinches sequences and scenes from other crime
movies, the most egregious being Michael Cimino's YEAR OF THE DRAGON and John
Woo's BULLET IN THE HEAD. But what do you really expect - it is a Wong Jing
film!
Ultimately, this movie lacks the gravitas of much
better pics like TO BE NUMBER ONE, but it does sport a few pretty good action
sequences, of which the best is a frenetic foot chase through the criminal hive
of the Walled City, which ends with one of the most bone crunching scenes I've
witnessed in a long time.
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| Andy Lau, Chasing the Dragon |
If you haven't seen these early 90s gangster pics,
you'll probably enjoy this new Canto movie. But, for me, all CHASING THE DRAGON
does is make me yearn for the great Hong Kong gangster films of yesteryear.
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