|
John Woo finds the sweet spot. "If you don't stop pointing that gun, you'll have to use it." Curtiz's Angels with Dirty Faces is the reliable model, adjusted to the counterfeit affluence of Hong Kong triads. The gangster (Li Tung) luxuriates with sham bills, goes to prison after a betrayal in Taiwan, is rebuffed upon release by the brother turned police officer (Leslie Cheung). "I remember when you kids played cops and robbers together." The traitor (Waise Lee) has risen to the top of the operation, and brought down the extravagant enforcer (Chow Yun-fat) to limping flunky. "This is not our world anymore," brotherhood goes out with a bang. The revitalization of the action genre doubles as its moral elegy, Woo has it all at his fingertips in a furious stream of images. (The restaurant shootout epitomizes his kinetic impressionism, the vengeful torpedo enters in slow-motion and leaves a corridor decorated with splatter.) Gag construction often goes hand in hand with the eruption of tumult, the young cadet's bumbling girlfriend (Emily Chu) obliviously dons headphones and boils water while in the other room the ailing patriarch (Tien Feng) gets off his sickbed and into a scuffle with a hired assassin. The unflagging élan aestheticizes bloody spittle overcranked against orange neon, and the city at night best appreciated through a bandaged eye. In between squibs, a philosophical debate at the temple: "Anybody can be a god if they can control their fate." Above all, Chow's bravura cool with trench coat, tinted specs and dangling toothpick, his bruised smirk rounding off the striking resemblance to Elvis Presley. A darkened pier lit up by exploding barrels sets the stage for a fraternal reconciliation. "If you live by your principles, you have nothing to fear." Lethal Weapon and Die Hard in quick succession suggest Hollywood promptly absorbing the supercharged template. With Kenneth Tsang, Shing Fui-On, Yanzi Shi, and Hsieh Wang.
--- Fernando F. Croce |