Jonathan Marshall's 10 Best HK Films
CHUNGKING EXPRESS (1994)
Although Chungking Express is comparable to Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993),
Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) and even Jean-Luc Goddard’s films,
Kar-Wai Wong’s combination of edgy, stylish capers, drop-dead hysterical humour, and
genuinely touching ‘poetry of the banal’ is unique. Like those listed above,
Wong inter-cuts apparently unconnected stories to produce a glossily chiasmic mixture of
lives. Wong’s clean, often tinted, jump-cut approach renders this otherwise random
selection of individuals into a surprisingly coherent, shimmering kaleidoscope of
experiences, with inanimate objects such as wigs, bars of soap and cans of pineapple
taking on a life of their own (one lovelorn character even chastises his
‘sympathetic’ dish-cloth for dripping too many tears).
The sudden switch halfway through the film from one policeman and his
romantic entanglements (given a wonderfully comic immediacy by his obsession with
consumption as both a cure and symptom of his woes) to another equally obsessive cop
therefore seems entirely logical, seguing into a study of one woman’s curious habit
of renovating the home of the second without his permission or knowledge. Wong combines
this with a superb use of ‘the theme song’ (the tune a couple formerly danced
to; 'California Dreaming' as the epitome of one woman’s free-floating sense of self),
excavating every nuance of the music and lyrics while providing solid sonic recurrences to
mesh the rocking, bubbling, cosmopolitan sounds of this hyper-urban world. Chungking
Express is a dream by any standards and one of Hong Kong’s most accessible art
house comedies.
FIRST STRIKE (1996)
Director Stanley Tong also worked on such turbo-charged Jackie Chan classics as Police
Story III: Supercop (1992) and Rumble in the Bronx (1995), and recently
crossed to English language television, directing Sammo Hung in Martial Law (1998
+). For my money however this totally ludicrous James Bond spoof is his finest work -
though given that my best friend and I cruised Melbourne’s Chinatown in hope of
working as extras on First Strike, I’m probably biased! In any case, Tong
and Chan use their extra cash on this project to mess around in some fun locations. The
opening fight on the snow fields is superior even to that of The World is Not Enough (1999;
which First Strike almost retrospectively sends-up) while Jackie ducking sharks
at Sea World in search of the all-important gadget/secret is suitably naff and tense in
equal measure. Nothing beats the sheer excess of Jackie dealing with a big plastic shark
at the end though, a far more creative use of such a setting than say Bird on a Wire (1990),
as Chan and Tong freely admit how silly the whole thing is - and they don’t care!
Although Chan doesn’t actually nearly kill himself this time, he has
ample opportunity, clambering outside skyscrapers like some insane, terrified bug,
employing an A-frame ladder as a weapon (some good bungles in the out-takes for this bit)
and utilising stilts as they were never designed to be used. What really makes First
Strike though is Chan finally manages to strike the right balance between a plot which at
least makes sense on its own terms, high production values, opportunities for actual
acting (Chan is no de Niro, but the sense of helplessness mixed with unflagging moral
determination that characterises his screen presence is palpable here), mind-bogglingly,
stupidly dangerous stunts and high farce. Laugh? I nearly shat myself! Cried? Jesus, if
even one of the horribly nasty bodily crashes which Chan’s character endures hit me,
I would never even crawl again! First Strike is an octane-charged,
Albert-Broccoli-style take on Hong Kong kung fu cinema.
MR CANTON AND LADY ROSE (1989)
Jackie Chan always wanted to make a straight romance. Apart from producing the strikingly
tragic Rouge (1987), Mr Canton and Lady Rose is as close as Jackie came
until 1999's Gorgeous. Hong Kong humour is often disorientating for Anglophones,
but Lady Rose is absolutely hysterical. The comedy is pure slapstick farce. Even
the radiant Anita Mui (who Chan was rumoured to have been romancing at this period) gets
into the act, her dress tearing erratically, or being caught in rickety furniture, as
Jackie helplessly and hopelessly struggles to repair the damage he accidentally visits
upon her. Richard Ng as the dull police-officer is also wonderful, adding to the general
Buster Keaton / Marx brothers ambience.
Lady Rose also has some of Jackie’s best, jaw-droppingly
painful, crazy, prop-orientated fights. Memorable is an extended sequence where Chan
balances precariously on giant spools, before rolling through them in a series of
bone-crushing pratfalls, or where Jackie fights off a thousand enemies while jumping
around the outside of a balustrade. Tables and rickshaws become manicly mobile instruments
wielded by the incomparable Chan in a hyper-effective version of the fencing technique of
the hero from Prisoner of Zenda (1937). Although Lady Rose is comparable
to Capra’s A Pocketful of Miracles (1961; from which Chan takes the plot),
Jackie’s script and direction owe at least as much to the earlier Ealing comedies.
Chan is the leader of a group of rogues who - for all their criminal involvements - are
generous, lovable, salt-of-the-earth types. Lady Rose is Jackie’s most
overtly comic film which (together with his Project A, Part 2; 1983) acts a
fitting homage to Keaton.
ARMOUR OF GOD (1986)
OK, so I’m a fan of Jackie’s films, but one has to include one more for pure,
nutty action. It’s a close call with director Liu Chia Liang’s Drunken
Master II (1994), but Armour of God (which Chan wrote and directed) tops the
list. Jackie literally nearly killed himself in Armour of God when a
tree he was using as a pole-vault over a chasm broke. Chan was lucky it was this stunt
that failed though, for the film also includes Jackie jumping onto the top of a hot air
balloon - for real! This insane level of verisimilitude gives Chan’s early movies
their power and helped Hong Kong film crash onto international consciousness.
Although it was possible to fake these tricks (in First Strike,
1996; one is reassured to note Chan now uses a belay rope), Jackie did not have the time,
money or apparently the inclination to do so (in Project A, Part 2, 1983; for
example, Jackie even uses real chillies for a hilarious section where he spits
them into his opponents' eyes). This gives his films a crazy integrity which Hollywood
still can’t cap. Such details aside, Armour of God includes Chan’s
typical collection of over-the-top, impossibly painful fights (I mean, just how many times
has this guy been hit in the chest?) and slightly naff humour. Armour of God also
includes a short, sharp car chase modelled on The Italian Job (1969). The
highlight though is the finale where Jackie is attacked by leather-clad, high-kicking
super-vixens (who else would one expect to show up in some weird-arsed monastery?). In a
nice play on gender roles, Chan cannot actually defeat these refugees from blaxploitation
cinema, so instead puts them in a position where their stiletto heels impede their
movement. For pure, multi-generic, classic Jackie action, Armour of God is
superb.
A KID FROM TIBET (1991)
Yuen Biao spent much of his career as support for others, including Jackie Chan (Dragons
Forever, 1987; Mr Canton and Lady Rose, 1989) and Jet Li (Once Upon a
Time in China I, 1991). Although Biao also starred opposite Hong Kong’s greatest
actor of villains - Yuen Wah - in director Clarence Fok’s The Iceman Cometh (1989),
Biao’s own collaboration as an actor/director with Wah is both better and funnier. As
in The Iceman Cometh, much of the comedy of A Kid From Tibet relies on
the ‘fish out of water’ scenario, with Biao’s Buddhist priest presenting
some whimsically philosophic homilies and magical powers - rendered in classic late
‘80s / early ‘90s yellowy animations matted onto the film - for his city-slicker
hosts. The whole movie has a bouncy sparkle to it, not only in terms of the
cinematography, but also the plot, the generally good-humoured, awesome fights and zippy
score. Biao faces some typically nutty, sexy Hong-Kong-style baddies - including the
whip-wielding, vinyl encased Nina Li Chi as Wah’s sister. Her tense pout gives the
character an impressive depth and menace, despite her comic-strip presentation.
Amongst the thousands of kung fu films, only the best work of Biao and
Chan is funny, visceral and has a negligible body count. Peers Biao, Chan and
Sammo Hung share a similar presentation of the body as something assaulted over and over
again, a sensibility only exceeded in Western cinema with Die Hard I (1988).
Where Chan has a tight, rolling form - and Hung is a frighteningly agile mass - Biao has a
tall, characteristic, legs-astride pose which gives his upper body an amazing degree of
rotation. This is much more effective in evoking a kinaesthetic response in the audience
than the almost disembodied, intellectual, balletic ease of Jet Li, who comes across more
as a dancer than a struggling fighter. A Kid From Tibet is Biao’s shining
achievement.
SAVIOUR OF THE SOUL (1992)
Fantasy is perhaps the most bizarre Hong Kong film genre. The content provides
considerable opportunity for radically illogical shifts, while the frequent adaptation of
comics into film scripts imparts a fresh, imagistic, leap-frogging sensibility. Although
Saviour of the Soul has these qualities in spades, co-directors Yuen Kwai and David Lau
avoid the excessive silliness of films like the nearly as good Heroic Trio (1992)
or the over-rated A Chinese Ghost Story I (1987). Soul succeeds largely
because although there is a complex collection of characters as much defined by their look
and idiosyncratic fighting style as anything else, a frenetic play of slick effects,
spaces lit by wide splashes of color, as well as virtuosic, soaring fight sequences, there
is also ample room provided for Anita Mui’s hypnotic presence and that of her coolly
intense, chiselled masculine counter-part Andy Lau. The romance behind the plot encourages
a juxtaposition between the manicly mobile choreography of images one finds in Hong Kong
action films with more crystallised, lingering, iconographic framing approaches. The
sleeping/dying Mui in particular acts as a tragically constant living picture which
Lau’s increasingly distraught form energises and plays off. Add a twitchy but
otherwise impassive villain straight out of an ‘80s goth band, creative weaponry and
an uncommonly powerful, non-comic character who wears glasses, and Soul is more
than enough to enrapture even the most jaded action palette. Only Peter Mak’s Wicked
City (1992; from Tsui Hark’s script) comes close to being as nutty and stylish,
while still possessing a satisfying internal logic.
THE STORM RIDERS (1998)
Much of the joy of Hong Kong fantasy lies in its highly formulaic/generic quality,
borrowing liberally from other films and traditions. Director Andrew Lau Wai-Keung’s Storm
Riders however is almost unique. Wai-Keung’s innovation is partly technological
- Centro imaging produces some fantastic locations (the top of a Buddha’s head; Lord
Conquer’s fortress) and other digital effects familiar to audiences from Terminator
2 (1991), The Matrix (1999) and martial arts computer games like Tekken.
Wai-Keung uses these tools to visually and sonicly represent the philosophic idea of the
body as an amplified nexus for the forces of nature upon which martial arts is based.
Despite remaining firmly in the realm of action cinema though, Wai-Keung also employs
screen montage and tints reminiscent of Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book (1996)
or Prospero’s Books (1991).
The fabulous, effects driven cinematography gives the film an almost
subliminally avant-garde feel, transforming the screen into a luminous site of
extraordinary morphing movements. Wai-Keung couples this with a weighty, epic narrative,
following Lord Conquer - a hyper-powered mixture of Macbeth, King Lear and the chief
villain from Enter the Dragon (1973) - in his vain yet very nearly successful
attempt to thwart his own destiny ("I do not believe in fate," he recklessly
proclaims after beating down those preordained to defeat him, "I only believe in
myself!"). Sonny Chiba is superb as Conquer, wielding his virtual, matted-on powers
with a convincing, almost ‘massive’ grace. The supporting cast is also strong -
and indeed the world in which the film is set is populated with complex, well-rounded
figures drawn into the vortex of Conquer’s vaunting ambition. The combination of
magical, iridescent cinematography (only Enter the Dragon could possibly rival Storm
Riders in terms of the innovative use of color in action cinema) and a dense yet
swift script makes Storm Riders a new classic.
THE KILLER (1989)
Face/Off (1997) brought to mainstream Anglophone audiences the cinematic
phenomenon of director John Woo. The Killer however remains his archetypal work. Woo is
interested in male camaraderie in the face of conflict; enemies as a mirror of one’s
potential or true nature. As in the films of Ringo Lam, Woo’s fights always have a
sense of the suicidal. The image of the professional (yet highly ethical) killer Chow and
the fraught cop Danny Lee standing opposite each other, arms bearing pistols pressed
between them in an interlocking relationship, each man gently smiling, sums up the both
film and indeed Woo’s whole opus. For all Woo’s Tarantino-esque bombast, he is
more of a cinematic painter than a child of MTV. Woo takes elements and incidents (as well
as characters and bodies), shooting and replaying them at different speeds from all
angles, exploding them inwards and outwards, making every part of the screen and the
soundscape overpoweringly loaded with force and symbolism. Like Sergio Leone, Woo is from
an epic, Catholic sensibility. Redemption comes from suffering - if at all - graphically
realised in the mesmeric, massive body count of the finale set in a church. The Killer
sits alongside A Few Dollars More (1965), Heat (1995), Scarface
(1983) and The Godfather (1972) as a landmark of orgiastically angst-ridden
gunplay.
A BETTER TOMORROW II (1987)
Although writer/director John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow I (1986) is a
more consistent film, filled with pathos, while Tsui Hark’s third instalment (1989)
offers not only Chow Yun-Fat but also Anita Mui (complete with an M16 in
each of her hands), their collaboration on A Better Tomorrow II (Woo directed
Hark’s script) remains one of the most breath-taking cinematic works of all time. The
final image of the dead-yet-still-breathing heroes resting in massive armchairs - blood
and destruction literally sprayed all around them - gazing out like gods of war lingers
long after the film’s wash of stylish, black-suited violence and insoluble moral
conflicts ebbs out of one’s consciousness. Even an apparently peripheral character -
the evil-gangster’s unflinchingly professional hit-man - is rendered with an epic
depth in his final shoot out with Chow. The message is that criminals and cops may well be
obliged to fight, but the distinction between them is arbitrary. The true measure of a man
is his fealty to the intense, blood-forged bonds that these figures finally self-destruct
amidst. Moreover, although the sound track is somewhat cheesy, its unapologetic anthemic
prominence renders the entire narrative even more hyper-real. These are not characters so
much as types, their story even more visceral because of this. I could rave about this
film forever - suffice to say if your brain doesn’t melt by the time you’ve
finished watching Better Tomorrow II, either you’re dead, or you’re
already a hardcore Chow/Woo fan!
CITY ON FIRE (1987)
While Ringo Lam shares John Woo’s obsession with male codes of violence and
the ties that bind cops and their quarry, Lam’s directorial style owes more to early
post-1960s US films like Bullitt (1968) and Serpico (1973) than
Woo’s operatic style. Lam’s work is gritty, full of intense close ups, flashes
of hand-held camera and narcotically lit bars or fluoro-bleached interiors. Where Woo
seduces with stylish, bravura violence, Lam’s work gently grates on the brain. Where
Woo uses music to provide a dream-like sense of the sublime - the score melodramatically
rising and sweeping over and through the action - Lam mixes the busyness of the street
with harsh guitars, blues, synthesisers and night-club singers. Although Lam’s
subsequent Full Alert (1997) is equally breath-taking, City on Fire is
the classic in which Lam first mastered his technique. The powerful presence of Chow
Yun-Fat here also adds a sandpapery immediacy to the characters in one of Chow’s
finest performances. For a genre so focused on both implicit and actual violence, there is
comparatively little fighting in City on Fire. Instead, the entire film draws one
inexorably and painfully closer to the bloody finale, creating a palpable psychological
tension. The very inevitability of the conclusion adds to its force, making it one of the
most affective scenes in modern cinema. City on Fire is an amazing study of the
effects of criminal pursuit.
3 Feb 2000 © Jonathan Marshall
JONATHAN MARSHALL
is a Melbourne arts critic writing on cult-film, dance, theatre, avant-garde music &
general weirdness. He teaches at the University of Melbourne & is working on a PhD on
the public presentation of insanity & hypnosis in late 19th century France. His Hong
Kong film reviews appear in Melbourne street newspaper IN Press. If you don't get
to see IN Press, good news - Jon's HK Film Reviews are reprinted
on Heroic Cinema.
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