Ungrateful Tink
Director: Francis Nam
Year: 1999
Rating: 5.5
Somehow this film
manages to be almost as odd as its title. I never did figure out what the
title was referring to – there is no Tink – but the film certainly is filled
with ungrateful characters that you would be unwise to ever turn your back
on.
One gets the impression while watching this
film that the filmmakers likely had no idea where it was going from day to
day – basic scriptwriting done by the seat of your pants Hong Kong style.
The film is just all over the place – scenes begin and sometimes go nowhere
– others are gone before you even knew they were there - characters are introduced
and then when the writers can’t think what to do with them, they kill them
off (or perhaps the actors had other commitments!). This sort of fast food
filmmaking tends to break down a film from time to time and the pace of the
film suffers seriously. I sat there wondering if this film was ever really
going to end – or would all the characters have to be killed off first. Just
about – but then in the last ten minutes the film catches a second wind and
barely makes it to the finish line still on its feet.
By now Anthony Wong could play his character in his sleep – and at times
it looked like he was – as he is a cop straddling the world of the law and
the shadowy world of the triads. Though basically a decent sort, he still
takes bribes and favors from the wrong people. He thinks he has it all figured
out – that he can play both sides of the game – he knows just how far he
can go – but he doesn’t realize that he is playing in a pool along side some
hungry sharks. He gets caught in a dangerous vortex created by the
ambitions of a young triad member (To Tai-yue) that Wong considers a friend
and a young cop that Wong is a mentor to.
In the background are two women who are perhaps the most intriguing aspect
of this film. One is like a triad Lady Macbeth (Celia Sze) urging her man
on, while the other – Wong’s girlfriend – for much of the film seems to be
little more than a flower vase, but shows some deadly thorns when her interests
are at stake. This is the second film in which I have seen this actress (Lam
Mei-hing) in (the other being Francis Ng’s girlfriend in Bullets over Summer)
and both her looks and her thoughtful performances in smallish roles have
been impressive.
Somewhere in this muddle lies the potential of a good film perhaps, but the
director never quite finds it. There are moments when he seems to – only
to have it slip from his grasp once again.
