Fatal Move
Director:
Dennis Law
Year: 2008
Rating: 6.0
Aka - Triad Wars
This messy triad film seems to be strongly
influenced by Milkyway and in fact they (100 Years of Film) are one of the
co-producers. But it is lacking in the coherence and quiet heroism of a Milkyway
film. This has a spat of very graphic violence of slicing and dicing arms
and fingers that seemed unnecessarily graphic and primarily there for shock
value. Milkyway triad films could have a lot of violence but there was always
a core of humanity in films like The Mission, Exiled, Expect the Unexpected,
A Hero Never Dies - someone that you rooted for. Not here really. Nearly
every one of the characters are killers with no remorse, no hesitation. They
get what they deserve and you feel no grief.
The narrative is clumsy and jumps all over
the place in the first half before it settles down to a typical bloody triad
set of betrayals and gang warfare with the cops keeping an eye on things.
But what a wonderful cast - a few Milkyway regulars with Simon Yam, Lam Suet,
Maggie Siu, Hui Siu-hung and the great Wong Tin-lam. Besides them, you have
Sammo Hung leading the cast and Danny Lee once again a cop, Ken Lo, Pinky
Cheung, Fung Hak-on, one of the classic actresses from way back, Tien Niu,
and one of the new generation of action stars, Wu Jing. That is a dream cast
of stars and character actors. And they all do fine and get their share of
screen time. Maybe that was the problem - the film was too spread out with
too many characters taking their bow. Keeping up with the plot was more complicated
than it should be.
Sammo Hung is celebrating the birth of his
son - to a young second wife. Everyone is there in his triad group - his
first wife Tien Niu, his brother Simon Yam, his old friend Hui Siu-hung,
his gang Fung Hak-on and Ken Lo. Times are good in the drug trade and they
are ruthless. Sammo is respected but mainly feared. In the opening scene,
Simon executes a man tied to a chair and casually walks away. Sammo's usual
response to any problem is kill them. Kill them all. But things slowly start
to fall apart. Drugs are intercepted, a rival gang is pushing into their
territory, cash flow becomes tight, the cops are on every move they make,
one of their top men is arrested and his wife blackmails them to hand over
cash and then the old boss of Sammo's is kidnapped with a huge demand to
free him. Someone on the inside may be in on it. Someone in the police force
may be a rat.
It explodes into violence often and it is
brutal. Wu Jing with his blue hair and locks hanging over his eyes is the
main killer. The sword his weapon of choice. In one gang fight, he goes into
overdrive with his sword and fingers litter the ground. There is also an
intense raid on the police station, other executions, a couple shoot-outs,
a torture scene that was hard to watch and almost for fun Sammo taking on
Wu Jing. Pole vs sword. Sammo still had it back in 2008. The action is the
main reason to watch this - Wu Jing is always a treat - and there is some
good acting and one big scene for Tien Niu that showed why she was considered
one of the best actors back in 1970s and 80s. There is little love or affection
for this film on the internet - it is cold and cruel but some fine individual
scenes. And I will watch anything Sammo is in.
