Cold War
Director:
Longmund Leong Lok-man/ Sunny Luk Kim-ching
Year: 2012
Rating:
6.5
The two co-directors as well as writers
of the script intentionally keep the audience puzzled and perplexed by making
things as convoluted and jumbled as possible. By the time you wade through
the constantly changing story-lines to get to the climax, you have to wonder
if it was worth it. It is as if you go through a series of opening
smaller and smaller boxes and when you get to the last one you, you go "really?".
It doesn't make a lot of sense if you give it much thought but it was interesting
getting there. Well-shot, a few good action scenes and a cast of near royalty.
It is a standard cat and mouse game between the bad guys and the cops but
it takes it down a layer into the police force itself where rivalry and ambition
also is part of the game.
From the opening scene of a bomb going off
in a shopping mall, the film is in a rush and rarely pauses to give you time
to think. A few hours later a police van with five cops goes missing and
the force goes on alert. The Commissioner (Michael Wong) is abroad and so
the number two man takes over. One of the cops in the van is the son (Eddie
Peng) of Deputy Commissioner Lee (Tony Leung Ka-fai). He brings in the entire
police force and puts the city on an emergency alert. Leung in a fine performance
is all nerves and abrasion like a razor blade looking for its first blood.
The other Deputy Commissioner - but of Management as opposed to Operations
- is Sean Lau and the two immediately bump heads and egos. Lau thinks that
Lee should step aside because his son is involved. When Lee refuses, he organizes
a palace coup to force Lee out and him in. Both have their loyalists. One
side are the organization and efficiency guys vs the cops who go out and
catch the bad guys risking their lives. This division drives part of the
film.
Lau is played by Aaron Kwok, often a target
of my slings and arrows in the past for his inability to act beyond looking
good and having great hair that I am jealous of. This film did not change
my mind - though there have been a few films since my early criticism of
him in which I thought he was improving - here he is as stoic as a tree stump.
He almost literally never changes his expression or shows any emotion throughout
the film. Never a laugh or a grin or a wince - just plays it completely straight
as if he is a unit of Artificial Intelligence. I suppose he felt his role
and the seriousness of the situation called for that - but give it some nuance
- show some humanity. If only for a moment.
The kidnappers make a demand of money. So
far it is fairly straightforward so far but it starts to become likely that
there must be a mole within the top echelon because the kidnappers seem to
know everything and are always a step ahead. The film suddenly switches the
narrative over to Internal Affairs who begin to investigate and question
both Lee and Lau. And then it goes back to the cops. A good shootout takes
place on an overpass in Kowloon and then in a skyscraper. It is hard to figure
out where this is heading - if there is a mole, who is it and is it about
more than just the money. It is slickly made with a few nice twists but the
action is kept to a minimum with much of it focusing on the internal politics
and intrigue within the police force.
Showing up also are Charlie Yeung as the
police PR person but in a smaller role than I would have liked, Andy Lau
in basically a few minute cameo, Gordon Lam and Chin Ka-lok (who also choreographs)
as two senior policemen, Terence Yin in this bizarre haircut as the head
of technology and Andy On as a cop. This must have done well
enough because there is a Cold War 2 which I will soon be getting to. Tony
won Best Actor at the HKFA and the film won Best Film.
