Kingdom of Mob
Director: Ivan Lai
Year: 1999
Rating: 3.5
Venturing into a
HK video store these days and renting a bunch of new unfamiliar releases
is comparable to crossing a grazing pasture in the dark of night. The chances
are pretty good that you will step on a cow pie or two. I did with this film.
It is simply dreadful with not a single redeeming factor. Picking up this
film is an easy mistake to make with a cast of Anthony Wong, Diana Pang Dan,
Wu Ma and Michael Chan – but these days it is clear that actors are happy
to get any kind of work.
There is a kernel of a good idea somewhere
in this film, but there is such a lack of subtlety and execution that it gets
completely lost in the mess. The story takes place a few years into the new
millennium and a triad group is aware that HK will soon spread out into the
New Territories – and that the land that is cheap now – will be worth a fortune
in a few years. They set into motion their plans to buy up as much land as
possible.
This primarily revolves around Michael Chan doing whatever is necessary to
become the Mayor of a small town so that he can railroad land purchases through.
To do this – Chan and his son and daughter (Pang Dan) do whatever has to
be done – bribing, violence, and intimidation – to accomplish this. Eventually,
the ICAC in HK learns of this and comes out to investigate and when they
initially can’t get anywhere they bring Anthony Wong and his bad haircut
into the fray. It turns out that Pang Dan and Wong have a history and both
have hidden agendas.
Damn! – reading that summary it sounds like a decent film. Don’t believe
it - it is awful – heavy-handed, badly acted, idiotic script, poor
production values and painfully tedious. Usually having one villain doing
the maniacal laugh thing is more than I can take. This film has three of
them! Do directors, writers and actors really think all bad guys go into
a crazed laugh every time they do something rotten?
Sometimes Wong can single-handedly make a
film interesting, but here he sleepwalks through his role and talks so slowly
and monotonously that you fear he will pass out in mid-sentence at times.
Pang Dan has been known to spark up a bad film as well – but certainly not
in a sexless and thankless role such as the one she has here. Somewhere around
the one hour mark of this film Wong - who was recently accused by an actress
of being a bit frisky in their love scenes – grabs Pang Dan and the two of
them lock lips for a minute or two. And I thought OK – so at least
this is why Anthony Wong did this film – but what was everyone else’s excuse.
