The Wall
Reviewed by YTSL
For some reason which I can’t quite discern, Jordan
Chan looks to have latterly lost popularity among Hong Kong cinema goers.
Whereas the dancer turned singer cum actor appeared in eight movies -- including
a pair of mature “Young and Dangerous” installments, two Milkyway Image productions,
and a United Filmmakers Organization (U.F.O.) work -- in 2000, he featured
in just one low budget effort in 2001. And although his production
rate has increased again in 2002, minimally publicized works like “Sleeping
with the Dead” and this not atypical Buddy Film Creative Workshop production
-- which was released on a grand total of two HKSAR screens -- are hardly
going to propel him back into the A list (where, IMNSHO, he deserves to be).
This is not to say though that THE WALL is far from a watchable -- and, at
times, rather emotionally impacting -- effort. Neither am I about to
insinuate that this Marco Mak helmed, co-scripted (along with Simon Loui
and Kelvin Lee) and co-edited (with Angie Lam) work doesn’t benefit from
Jordan Chan’s starring in it (as Cho, a thirty year old individual who had
been sentenced to 25 years behind bars for killing another man but had gotten
time off for good behavior and thus managed to leave prison after having
“only” served 12 years of jail time). Additionally, it would be harsh
indeed to argue that this charismatic actor’s good efforts are wasted in
an undoubtedly flawed, yet also not necessarily unsatisfactory, movie whose
makers’ sympathies are very much with its underdog main character, and who
appear intent on emphasizing how considerable is the struggle for an ex-con
-- even one with the best of intentions -- to not get sucked back into the
violent plus otherwise problematic edges of a society that often seems unprepared
to really give people like him a second chance at leading a truly honest
life.
This is especially so since THE WALL has a generally competent cast that’s
co-headed by the similarly capable Patrick Tam -- whose Chan Kai Dik character
was the fellow fledgling “goo wat jai” turned major underworld figure who
Cho had voluntarily taken the murder rap for. What with a Triad “small
potato” named Jack (who is played by Chapman To as a wanna be follower of
Cho as well as Dik) also prominently figuring early in the picture (and Shek
Sau’s “Elder Brother” Nam character initially appearing as though he would
be more directly involved in the lives of his lieutenant, Dik, as well as
Cho), this film -- whose depiction of the bond between its two main men can
be said to border on the homoerotic -- looked for a time like it would be
a majorly male buddy as well as Triad focused effort.
THE WALL arguably reveals its ambition to veer somewhat off these already
overly well trodden paths though with such as Cho’s (biological, as opposed
to crime) family centered choices re the first things he wants to do upon
getting out of jail being to pay a visit to his elder sister (who Amanda
Lee essays) and pay his respects to his deceased mother. Additionally,
there’s the intriguing revelation re this presumably modest budget movie’s
gravel voiced protagonist possessing a talent for cooking that makes him
a viable executive chef of a fine dining establishment that doesn’t seem
to ever lack for generally very appreciative customers. And even while
it is Dik who was this restaurant’s owner, this (re)viewer did have a reassuring
sense for a while there that the powerful crime boss -- who seems to feel
like he owes his “heng tai” a lot and, in order to regain his friendship,
had promised Cho that he would gradually ease out of his dangerous as well
as cruel profession -- would do as much as he could to avoid having his unsavory
undertakings intrude into this particular business venture’s area.
Before too long however, it becomes patently obvious that (even) Dik cannot
prevent certain individuals who are connected to his criminal world from
being patrons of that which he had been trying to keep clean. Also,
while he could help out his pal by drinking some of the wine that the hooliganish
son of his primary patron (James Fong -- whose father is Fong San Nam, AKA
Elder Brother Nam -- is well portrayed by David Lee) had sought to bully
Cho into imbibing, he wasn’t at all able to stop a young woman (San -- who
turns out to be the self-described “concubine” of the elder, plus seemingly
far more menacing, Mr. Fong -- comes in the physically attractive form of
Cherrie Ying) from very successfully capturing his good and caring friend’s
heart.
One would have thought that just about the last thing in the world that someone
who was seriously intent on staying on the straight and narrow would do is
to go to bed with a senior Triad’s designated lover. However, this
is precisely what the usually not unintelligent seeming Cho foolishly does,
and -- I think it is safe to presume -- more than once. As it turns
out, the evening that the obviously smitten man first had sex with San also
happens to be that during which Dik and a couple of men choose to do some
nasty things in his buddy’s kitchen to a man who turned out to be not only
an undercover policeman but also the younger brother of the angry cop who
comes in the form of the very intense acting Simon Loui. The chain
of events that follow these goings-on are rather predictable as well as violence
fraught in nature. Still, such is the extent to which good acting can
help suck one into a movie plus make even the expected difficult to emotionally
prepare for that I have to honestly report my being not at all unaffected
by witnessing what fate had in store for THE WALL’s main -- and actually
sympathetic, for all their faults and wrong headed actions -- characters.
My rating for this film: 6.5