True Colours
Reviewed by YTSL
In 1986, Ti Lung -- a former Shaw Brothers
star who made his acting debut back in 1969 and has continued to appear
in films to this day -- appeared in a total of two movies. The earlier
of them was that year’s box office champ (“A Better Tomorrow” also is notable
for having jump-started Chow Yun-Fat and John Woo’s careers). The
second was this Cinema City crime drama that was released in theatres at
the tail end of a calendar year which saw a total of eighty-seven Hong
Kong films -- including two other offerings with Brigitte Lin Ching-Hsia
in its cast in the form of the magnificent “Peking Opera Blues” and moody
“Dream Lovers” -- getting screened in local cinemas.
As regular visitors to brns.com know full well,
this (re)viewer is an unrequited Brigittephile (who is able to derive much
delight in watching her carrying out even the most mundane of acts).
And while my admiration of Ti Lung cannot approach the extent or intensity
of my affection for the goddess of an actress who portrayed his character’s
lady love in this Kirk Wong helmed work, he -- who apparently is the husband
of her best friend in real life -- actually is one of those whose charismatic
presence alone can save many a film for me. Consequently, my feeling
prior to viewing TRUE COLOURS was that -- at the very least -- I surely
would be able to like a good portion of that which did, after all, have
her as its leading lady and gave him second billing (after its producer
cum scriptwriter, Raymond Wong).
Upon my catching sight of TRUE COLOURS’s chubby
cheeked main man -- in front of as well as behind the camera -- however,
my heart couldn’t help but immediately sink. Simply put: It probably
only ever was in Raymond Wong’s own dreams where he could credibly come
across as a tough guy (and “heng tai” of Ti Lung’s far more convincingly
macho character, to boot). And as if it wasn’t already difficult
enough to take seriously those of the movie’s opening scenes that had his
Robert and Ti Lung’s Ho Lung characters “rumbling” against other goo wat
jai types (and then running away in fright after one of them had stabbed
a policeman), there’s also the former’s fairly sudden transformation into
a do-gooder Christian priest (whose particular mission appeared to be one
which involved his trying to keep potential delinquents from going further
astray) to contend with!
Just as I was about to give up all hope with regards
to this movie however, Ti Lung’s character came back into the picture as
someone who had finally decided to cease leading a fugitive’s life and
return to Hong Kong. In retrospect, the brief interval during which
TRUE COLOURS focused, for a change, on this men’s man and the relations
he was able to form with Robert’s orphan teen charges -- including a terribly
dubbed hot head named James -- might well be the film’s best as well as
happiest. Alternatively, although some might say the same of the
initial moments of Lung’s reunion with May, I have to admit to feeling
a bit weirded out by watching an obviously virile Ti Lung and absolutely
stunning Brigitte Lin’s acting all hot and bothered in a distinctly sexual
way (:S).
And worse was to come in the face, not only of
Lung’s discovery of May now being the maltreated wife of a rich and powerful
Triad (named Fuk Dung Wing), but also of that older man’s discovery of
the two old flames’ having gotten further reacquainted with each other
in his apartment. I.e., not content with literally throwing Lung
out of a window (albeit while he was tied to a rope that dangled from one
of its bars), the far from nice Mr. Fuk proceeded to additionally publicly
humiliate May (by doing such as boasting at full volume -- and this while
Lung and Robert were in the vicinity -- re his having made his wife cry
out louder in bed than she had told him that she ever could) plus privately
batter her.
As one might expect, all this does not sit well
with the full blooded man that May admitted to still carrying a torch for
(despite his not having contacted her even once in the five years that
he was on the run). Accordingly, Lung decides to act to get her away
from the influential -- including with certain crooked police officers
-- individual who had forced her to marry him and back into his loving
arms. If only TRUE COLOURS had not also devoted an inordinate amount
of time on his buddy Robert’s preachily inveighing Lung to forget his beloved
so that both she as well as he can get on with the rest of their life (as
well as essentially choose the coward’s option at almost every turn).
As it stands though, I am obliged to frustratedly concur with Roger Garcia’s
damning assertion that Raymond Wong and “his pretentious little epithets...have
together destroyed what could have been a masterpiece in style” (See the
“Looking Back at 1986” section of the HKIFF’s “Hong Kong Cinema ’79-’89”,
2000:102).
My rating for this film: 5.5