On the Run
Director: Alfred Cheung
Year: 1988
Rating: 8.0
Revisiting this
one after some 25 years. I thought it was great back then and I still do.
This is a terrific taut thriller that packs
an emotional punch and slams you in the face. It is brutal at times. Bone-crunchingly
brutal with shots through the head and machetes doing dirty work. It felt
very unusual for a Hong Kong film in the 1980s - very focused, no comedy,
totally serious, very suspenseful and sleek with a stunning color scheme
of garish greens, light blues and lurid reds. A crime classic. As noirish
as Hong Kong got back then with most of it being shot at night in which the
dark shows no mercy. There really wasn't anything quite like this until Johnny
To and Milkyway began producing a series of crime masterpieces in the middle
90s. In fact, their first film was Beyond Hypothermia which certainly has
echoes of this film with a beautiful female assassin.
It is directed by Alfred Cheung which is
surprising to me. He is basically known as an actor - generally playing innocuous
milk-toast characters who hide when things get rough. He has directed some
decent films - mainly light comedies such as the Her Fatal Ways series. I
never would have expected this to come from him. But he surrounds himself
with a lot of talent. Sammo and the boys doing the choreography, Kenneth
Yee (Saviour of the Soul, City Hunter, C'est Le Vie Mon Cherie, He's a Woman,
She's a Man, Comrades, Almost a Love Story) as the art director and Peter
Ngor (Full Contact, Walk In, Mr. Vampire) as the cinematographer. A good
script and this talent adds up to quality. And then there is Yuen Biao and
Pat Ha.
This is easily the best acting Biao ever
did. He never falls back on his charm or easy smile - just a serious performance
throughout. He also leaves all his usual legendary acrobatics off the screen
other than one great leap out of a window on to a street post. It just would
not have fit his character to have him doing somersaults and high wire stuff.
Instead, he just spits out grit and angst here. And for the most part leaves
the rough stuff to the female. This film made Pat Ha a fanboy's dream in
her flip hair-do as if she is going to get a chocolate malt with a girlfriend.
Remorseless, unflappable and deadly. A steely assassin who can shoot faster
than most of us can think, Head. Shoot. Another head. Shoot. She was by no
means an action actress but what Cheung wanted here was a serious dramatic
actress and that is what he got. She is fabulous here. Just steeped in charisma
and hardly says a word. And the camera loves her face in a series of stunning
well-lit close-ups.
The 1997 Handover anxiety permeates the
film. Everyone is already looking for a way to get out. Some are looking
for a big payoff first and don't really care how they do it. Interesting
from today's perspective as to how worried people were about what China would
do back then. Then after the Handoff and things stayed the same, people relaxed
- many returned - maybe it would not be so bad. The Pre-Handover folks proved
to be right of course. It begins with a group of men in an office getting
a phone call that "she" left the building. Who she is we don't know as she
walks in the neon lit night. She goes into a café and waits for her
husband to show up. That turns out to be Yuen Biao. They are in the process
of divorcing. She left him for another cop, Charlie Chin. Biao asks her if
she is still emigrating. I hope so she replies. Can I please go with you.
Here I am just a small cop with no future, he says. She on the other hand
is a top player in the Anti-Narcotics section of the police force. Unresolved,
he leaves but not before noting another man at a table who isn't eating his
food.
A few minutes later the lights dim and
a woman (Pat Ha) walks up to the wife (Ida Chan) and shoots her through the
head. She is a killer from Thailand. The guy not eating was her finger man.
From this point on the film explodes into action, unease and desperation.
The people who hired them now want them dead but they don't know who she
is. Biao figures it out and captures her. Calls it in to the Homicide Squad
with Charlie Chin in charge. He sends his men over. To kill both Ha and Biao.
They are behind all of this - his cop henchman are Lo Lieh, Yuen Wah, and
Phillip Ko. A pretty great group of tough guys. And dirty with drugs and
dreams of America.
Biao goes on the run with Ha. He picks
up his adorable little girl and they all go on the run. He calls into some
cops he knows who are honest. They get into it. A lot of people are killed.
No one can be trusted. One of my favorite kills is when one of the bad cops
is holding the little girl with a gun - Ha sings to her do-re-mi - a game
they had played earlier. On mi, the girl tilts her head. Bang. Many deaths
later, Ha says to Biao do you have any money. A little. Give it to me. He
hands over some change. Good. I only kill for money and it is time to start
killing them all. The last ten minutes is bang up brutality.
There are a few holes in the script and
would a cold-hearted killer really stick around because of the little girl.
Biao really doesn't seem that upset by his wife's death - more that his chance
to emigrate was killed. And he forgives Ha in a nanosecond. Of course, she
is Pat Ha. When this was released I think it did ok. 61st in the box
office standings with about HKD 7 million in ticket sales while Police Story
II in the same year got HKD 34 million. But over the years the reputation
of this film has really grown. Jackie Chan tried doing something similar
in 1993 with Crime Story where he left his usual persona outside and just
made a tough gritty crime film and it is one of his best.
