Tian Di
Director: David Lai
Year: 1994
Rating: 6.0
Aka - Heaven and
Earth
Aka - Chinese Untouchables
In the Untouchables, Kevin Costner as Elliot
Ness needed a squad of good men around him to put Capone behind bars, but
Andy Lau as Cheung Ye-pang only needs two others to clean up Shanghai in
the 1920s. And one of them is a drug addict and the other is a woman. Andy
is a near one-man army in this one. Modeled to some small degree on De Palma's
film but way more violent and downbeat. A Hong Kong film isn't going to settle
for a couple action scenes but go full bore here with two set-pieces that
are extensive and crazy. The mid-90s was Hong Kong heaven for just a few
more years when they knocked out films like this at a rapid pace and Andy
seemed to show up in a lot of them. The man who never ages. There is nothing
subtle about this film - everything is exaggerated and over the top, The
budget is big and brash directed by David Lai (Saviour of the Soul, Operation
Scorpio) with big sweeping movements and choreographed by Yuen Tak like a
meat cleaver. It is ridden with faults - often predictable, overplayed, clunky
dialogue - but it was nice seeing Andy Lau in a Hong Kong film when they
had balls to the walls.
His character Cheung is appointed by the
Nanking government to go to Shanghai and clean up the opium trade. He arrives
with great ambitions as well as his wife (Cherie Chan) only to quickly find
that he may be the only honest man in Shanghai. At a police dinner given
in his honor, the Chief makes jokes about his men all having expensive homes
on $40 a week and then the women come in and sit on their laps. He is basically
fucked and he knows it. His men are all on the take and set him up to be
killed. Except for Shantung Cat (Chin Shih-chieh) who is an opium junkie
but wants to stay with Cheung. The two of them begin raiding the opium
dens which brings them to the attention of the Chief (Ku Pao-ming) and his
partner in the trade Mr. Tai (Damian Lau).
If he can't be bought off, then terrify
his wife and if that doesn't work kill him. They keep trying. But he gives
as much as they do and this leads to those two set-pieces I mentioned. Both
kind of chaotic in the editing but still amazing. In one, Cheung, Cat and
the woman who joins them (Faye Yu Feihong) go out into the country and find
a huge cache of drugs protected by a near army. Andy to escape slides down
a long winding chute with the camera right in front of his face. In the finale,
Cheung tricks the two partners into trying to kill each other and then to
cover it up, kill everyone in the theater who came to watch the film. And
then Cheung starts his own killing. Lai chooses to shoot much of the film
in those old time sepia tones that I just found annoying more than anything.
Watched on vcd.
