Downtown Torpedoes
Director: Teddy Chen
Year: 1997
Rating: 6.0
Your mission should
you accept it - make a Hong Kong film as much like a Mission Impossible episode
as you can. A Mission Impossible styled movie (even the music was familiar
at times) as a group of super crooks who seem to have enough technological
know-how and gadgets to get them on to an incoming comet and back get involved
with British MI5 and the Hong Kong Security Branch. The film was in a way
a signal of where Hong Kong action films were heading. Very Westernized with
slick quickly edited action scenes and a turn off your brain mentality. The
action stars of the 1970s through much of the 90s were getting old and a
lot of new faces were being introduced. Young fresh faces that look equally
at ease on a model runway as in a film. This is as dumb as a bag of Goobers
peanuts. But no more stupid than were so many tech heavy Western films at
the time. These whiz kids are able to hack into anything within a few minutes,
set up complex scenarios in no time (even having a huge birthday cake), track
things through NASA, get from Hong Kong to Budapest with the snap of their
fingers after MI5 has closed down everything and get dragged behind a car
for many yards and not have a hair out of place. If you can accept this nonsense,
then sit back and watch some attractive young stars go through their paces.
Cash (Jordan Chan) and Jackal (Kaneshiro
Takeshi) are in the process of breaking into a financial institution in Frankfurt
(as a warning it is one of the dullest cities in the world). Simple enough.
Cash leaves his phone in the lobby and it magically is able to shut off the
security cameras. Then he goes upstairs, gets into an office and breaks into
a computer. Passwords? We laugh at passwords. The kind of thing any of us
can do. On the outside Jackal is scaling down the walls and breaks into the
processing room. They download data to a FLOPPY disc and get away. Directing
them over their headsets is Sam who they have never seen. Nor the fourth
member of what is called an ATM - Available Tactical Mercenaries. Their services
are expensive. The fourth member is Titan (Ken Wong) who is the electrical
genius and has a small drinking problem.
When they get back to Hong Kong they are arrested by Hong Kong security headed
by Stanley Wong (Alex Fong) and brought into a room where they meet Sam -
the lovely Charlie Yeung who can make every film better by simply taking
up space. Stanley tells them that he has frozen their bank accounts (why
they would have any significant amount of money in Hong Kong is poor financial
planning) and unless they perform a job for them, they will never get it
back. Since they can hack into anything in minutes, I don't know why they
just didn't hack into the bank, unfreeze their money and wire it to an offshore
account. But they don’t.
The job is again very simple - break into
MI5 headquarters and steal some $100 counterfeit plates in a secure vault
with a ton of guards. The Shah once had the plates, then Khomeini and now
MI5. Fong tells them that the head of the Hong Kong office of MI5 plans to
go into business for himself. They pick up a fifth partner, Phoenix, who
is the hacker of all hackers - played by the infinitely adorable Theresa
Lee. The break in and break out of MI5 headquarters was well paced and executed
- and as believable as me dating Scarlett Johansson. But in these types of
films we know it won't be that simple - someone will betray them - there
is always a skunk in the works - and in fact there is betrayal on top of
betrayal. The film moves around briskly not leaving much time for character
development, but there was really no time to worry about that as we zipped
from Frankfurt to Hong Kong to Budapest. It is all style with little logic
or heart thrown into the mix yet still entertaining on its own terms. Pretty
Boy (and girl) action films were soon to dominate Hong Kong with Gen-X Cops
and Gen-Y Cops and other similar films. Grit was no longer in vogue – real
kung-fu was passé - everyone had to look good, dress fashionably,
act cooler than a martini and pretend to do action. It was a new era
like it or not. It is directed by Teddy Chen (Purple Storm, Kung Fu Jungle)
and choreographed by Stephen Tung-wai.
