Winners & Sinners Capsule Reviews
Kwan Tak-hing:
The Skyhawk — July 20, 2017
A weird confluence of the past, present and future of kung fu. Kwan Tak-hing plays Wong Fei-hung (as he did in almost hundred films from 1949 on), vacationing in Thailand with his apprentice Fatty, played by Sammo Hung. Sammo did the action choreography as well (and maybe you can catch his pals Mars and Lam Ching-ying doing stuntwork), but the direction is by Korean transplant Jeong Chung-hwa, who had a major hit for Shaw Brothers with Five Fingers of Death in 1972 before jumping to Golden Harvest the next year for The Devil’s Treasure, which also starred and was choreographed by Sammo Hung. The Skyhawk also features Nora Miao, in a far too brief role, which along with the setting amidst labor strife in Thailand, inspires echoes of Bruce Lee.
It doesn’t hang together very well, Kwan integrated better into the Sammo/Golden Harvest world a few years later with The Magnificent Butcher and Dreadnaught, and the moral philosophy of his Wong is on shaky ground in the vigilante early 70s. The villains have all the vices (gambling, drug dealing, forced prostitution, hiring Hwang In-shik, union-busting), but Wong is resolute in not responding to their provocations. His new disciple, played by Carter Wong (Sammo’s bland and handsome counter-part in the early 70s Angela Mao films), keeps fighting anyway, going so far as to ignore Wong’s command not to kill in the final battle. The tension is left unresolved, the two incompatible heroes just walk off into the sunset.
Karl Maka:
Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog — July 21, 2017
The first of only two movies released by Gar Bo Films, the production company started by Sammo Hung and Lau Kar-wing. The company collapsed when several of its key collaborators left to form Cinema City and dominate 1980s Hong Kong filmmaking, including Karl Maka, who directed this one, and Dean Shek, who plays one of the villains (key Cinema City figure Eric Tsang cowrote the script with Maka as well).
The other Gar Bo film, Odd Couple, is vastly better, possibly because of Lau’s direction but mostly because it’s about these incredible stunt performers first and foremost, with the goofy slapstick only an added bonus. Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog is just a Karl Maka movie with the occasional fight scene thrown in, but even those are unsatisfactory for reasons that have nothing to do with the performers: they’re too brief, they’re indifferently shot and edited, with no visual flair or sense of style (during one of Lau’s big fights, for example, he’s wearing the same basic color as his opponent, so their movements blend together into a vague gray blur rather than the distinctive swirls of clashing color that so both look cool and allow the audience to differentiate the various impossible movements of the actors.
In the late 70s-80s period, Sammo basically had two star personas. In the early films he usually plays a cocky, amoral scoundrel who’s a bit dim. Around the time of Winners and Sinners, he starts playing surprisingly badass sad sacks. This is one of the least appealing versions of the former persona, neither he nor Lau are the least bit likable (unlike their charming squabbling in Odd Couple).
Ruan Lingyu:
The Goddess — March 1, 2017
Old fashioned story about a prostitute with a maternal heart of gold that would be trite if not for the elegantly precise filmmaking of Wu Yonggong (making his first film, he served as director, screenwriter and art director) and the fact that Ruan Lingyu sets the screen on fire.
Milkyway Image/Patrick Leung:
Beyond Hypothermia — April 14, 2016
Only fitting that the first film produced by Milkyway Image should be a slick genre hybrid of blood-spattering violence and romantic tragedy. Jacklyn Wu plays an assassin with no name and no past, robotic and literally the coldest person around, who forms a tentative, yet deep, bond with Lau Ching-wan’s gregarious noodle seller just as her entire world, such as it is, collapses in a cascade of revenge. More focused than the haphazardly plotted A Moment of Romance, Wu’s 1990 film produced by Johnnie To, and more grounded in the blue-black night of Hong Kong. In that film, freedom is Andy Lau on a motorcycle, racing through the sunset. In this one, it’s Wu and the other, more earthy Lau on a raft, sliding down a rain-drenched street in the middle of the night, landing happily in a pool of mud. Both films end in tragedy: in the former one lover wanders the streets looking desperately for her man; in the latter, the agents of nihilistic violence literally trap them in a hail of bullets and crushed metal. But at least they’re together.
