The Golden Triangle
Director: Wu Ma/ Rome Bunnag
Year: 1975
Rating: 4.5
This is a
peculiar film that I came across. A poorly dubbed Thai-Hong Kong co-production
with a few big names, but a messy outcome. Rome Bunnag, a Thai director known
for his comedies teams up with the great Hong Kong actor/director Wu Ma to
helm this. Most of the talent behind the camera is Thai and my guess is that
Bunnag did most of the directing. In an intriguing credit, montage is given
to Prince Chatrichalerm Yukol. The Prince is one of Thailand's most famous
directors, partly for belonging to the Royal family but also for his epic
historical films.
On the acting side, Hong Kong provides three
from the Shaw Brothers though as best as I can tell, Shaw was not involved
with the film. They are Lo Lieh, Tanny Tien and Tien Feng. Most of the other
roles are played by Thais, but special attention has to go to the leading
man played by Sombat Metanee. Sombat is likely the most famous actor in Thai
history having been the leading man in over 600 films. He passed away a few
years ago but even when he was older he was in films such as Tears of the
Black Tiger and Bangkok Loco.
There are some interesting plot points here,
but the execution is pretty bad. There are a lot of logic gaps and the action
choreography is sloppy. For example, Lo Lieh is stopped by a blockade of
about a dozen Thai cops. He gets up on top of the truck he is driving in
full view and mows them all down without the cops getting off a shot. Thai
cops don't have a great reputation, but come on. I expect the choreographer
was not from Hong Kong but admittedly the final big shootout was better thanks
to Lo Lieh. He is a Hong Kong drug smuggler who ends up in Tien Feng's gang
in Burma.
Sombat is an undercover Thai cop who infiltrates
the Burmese gang run by Tanny, looking gorgeous in her tribal outfits. She
is the good drug smuggler, Tien and Lo Lieh are the villains. The film is
sympathetic to the growers of the poppy, but sends a message how destructive
they are. There was another Hong Kong film released with the same title in
the same year starring Kurata Yasuaki.