Moving Targets
Director: Wong Jing
Year: 2004
Rating: 6.0
Following in the
large wake of the Infernal Affairs trilogy success, Hong Kong continues to
churn out films that explore the world of cops and triads and the gray space
in between them. Moving Targets is a fairly solid if quickly forgettable
entry into this genre that is apparently based on an old TVB show from the
1980’s called Police Cadet that was a springboard for a number of young actors
such as Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Carina Lau. This film too brings on board
some of today’s young Turks – Nicholas Tse, Edison Chen and Gillian Chung
- and throws them into this murky milieu of friendship, loyalty and corruption.
Director Wong Jing jumps right into it as four rookie cops – Tse, Chen, Roy
Chow and Wu An – are having dinner together at an outdoor restaurant when
a fierce gunfight breaks out between some bad guys and some cops and the
boys are instantly in the middle of it and shoot a number of the crooks very
dead. Commander Simon Yam is so impressed with their quick reaction that
he immediately signs them up for his department. What he seemingly doesn’t
know is that Tse is the son that he walked away from many years ago when
he deserted Tse’s mother (Michelle Yam). Tse has the thankless role of being
the hurt and rebellious son – constantly questioning his father’s ability
and honor – though it is obvious to the viewer that Simon is the coolest
and most righteous cop around. Tse soon transfers to Internal Affairs reporting
to an ex-girlfriend (Shu Qao) of his fathers.
Edison is having his own difficulties – a top triad head (Kent Tong) and
his younger brother (Roderick Lam) set him up by threatening his mother (Helen
Poon) and his stepfather (Lam Suet) and then try to force Edison into becoming
their mole on the inside. A situation arises in which Edison has to look
the other way and he is soon bounced out of the force and working for Tong.
His wife Gillian furrows her adorable brow and worries that her husband is
going bad. At one point though she gives a nice little speech to Tse in which
she basically says a man has to do what a man has to do even if death is
the likely outcome. Other threads wind their way through this very busy plot
and keep things from ever slowing down too much.
The main problem here is that Wong Jing is just trying to cram too much story
into 90-minutes running time – the plot actually takes place over a year
or two and none of the threads feel fully fleshed out nor do the characters
take on much substance. To feel the impact of the tragic happenings that
follow it's important that you care about their lives and I assume in the
TV show they had plenty of time to build this and pull the viewer in, but
here it feels like shorthand film making in which the audience is expected
to fill in the missing character and relationship gaps by having seen so
many similar films. Still the film is crisply shot, it has no fat and the
few action scenes are nicely done. Even in a medium budgeted film like this
Hong Kong can make the action look good.
Tse who I keep thinking is the crème of the crop of the new male actors
is poorly used here in his dramatic sections as Wong gives him little to
do but look surly and keep his famous bangs in place. If he ever intends
to really become an actor I think he needs to rid himself of this follicle
affectation – it just looks too idololic for a movie character. Edison actually
comes off slightly better as he has a wider range of emotions to deal with
and does a serviceable job at times and a wooden one at others. One has to
wonder why Gillian signed on for this project – she is really a bigger star
than either of her male co-stars and yet she is shunted to the side and given
little to do but squinch her nose – which is truthfully all she has to do
for me – maybe she just likes working and getting the experience but a film
role like this does little for her career. Charlene seems to be making the
better decisions of late.
