Triviṣa

树大招风

Hong Kong, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 96 mins.

Directors: Xu Xuewen 许学文  [Frank Hui], Ou Wenjie 欧文杰 [Jevons Au], Huang Weijie 黄伟杰 [Vicky Wong].

Rating: 7/10.

Performances triumph over real drama in this ambitious cross-cutting of three separately directed storylines.

STORY

Hong Kong, 1997, summer. An armed gang led by Ye Guohuan (Ren Xianqi), a former soldier, robs a series of gold shops in Guantang [Kwun Tong] district and makes off with loot worth HK$10 million. However, because of the heat generated, Ye Guohuan’s fence (Huang Guangliang) wants to give him only a percentage of its worth. While burying one of his men at sea at night, Ye Guohuan sees a fleet of boats smuggling TV sets from China into Hong Kong at a lucrative profit, and decides to leave armed robbery behind and set up a similar business in the Mainland. Meanwhile, another of the so-called Three Kings of Thieves, professional kidnapper Zhuo Ziqiang (Chen Xiaochun), extorts HK$2 billion from a wealthy businessman for his son. The third King, Ji Zhengxiong (Lin Jiatong), on the run for robbery with murder, flees to Guangzhou, China. Via Feng (Lin Xue), a fixer, Ye Guohua meets a Mainland official who can arrange a business licence for him. Ji Zhengxiong hires two men in Guangzhou and returns to Hong Kong, where he stays with an old friend, Hui (Jiang Haowen), who’s now a family man after retiring from crime but whose lodgings overlook a gold shop Ji Zhengxiong plans to rob. Ye Guohua gets the business licence for his company smuggling TVs and electronic goods into Hong Kong. A rumour starts spreading through the underworld that the Three Kings of Thieves are to join up for a major job, though it’s news to them. During another kidnapping which nets him only HK$80 million, the bored Zhuo Ziqiang tells his men to contact Ye Guohuan and Ji Zhengxiong as the idea of working them is appealing, even though they’re both wanted men. He puts out a number for them to call. Meanwhile, Ye Guohan is finding the problem of constantly bribing Mainland officials frustrating, and Ji Zhengxiong aborts his gold-shop robbery at the last moment. Realising the real reason why Ji Zhengxiong came to visit him, Hui confronts him one evening.

REVIEW

Produced by Milkyway Image, the Hong Kong company of director Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To], and shot through with all of its trademark qualities – narrative playfulness, “expect the unexpected”, the twisted heroic codes of the underworld – Triviṣa is quirkily entertaining and features juicy playing by its veteran cast but doesn’t quite click dramatically as it should do. It’s a connoisseur item for fans of the Du school, with not enough freshness (or slam-bang action) to resonate with a wider public.

Based on an original idea by Du – to show three Kings of Thieves at a turning point in their careers and that of Hong Kong itself (the 1997 handover to China) – the project was five years in incubation and was originally conceived as a portmanteau movie. Commercial pressure by financier Media Asia Film resulted in the episodes being cross-cut into a single feature – probably wisely, and executed remarkably smoothly by Milkyway regular David Richardson – but there’s still an absence of a really dramatic resolution to the three plot strands after so much teasing set-up.

Given that each storyline had a separate director, scriptwriter and d.p., the result is still remarkably cohesive – more so than in Milkyway’s last comparable experiment, Triangle 铁三角 (2007), in which longtime pals Xu Ke 徐克 [Tsui Hark], Lin Lingdong 林岭东 [Ringo Lam] and Du played blind-man’s pass-the-parcel in a developing storyline. This time the directors, all young guys in their mid-30s, are still at the beginning of their careers, with only shorts behind them, and thus more flexible stylistically; only one, Ou Wenjie 欧文杰 [Jevons Au], has experience on features, co-writing Du’s Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 单身男女 (2011) and Romancing in Thin Air 高海拔之恋II (2012), both non-gangster pictures. Richardson’s accomplishment is knitting together the independently shot storylines seems even more remarkable – as well as the strength of Du’s guiding spirit (which, according to the filmmakers, only amounted to occasional questioning, not direct interference).

Tiny differences in style can be spotted. The storyline of armed-robber-on-the-run Ji Zhengxiong, darkly played by Lin Jiadong 林家栋 [Gordon Lam], is more atmospheric, with director Xu Xuewen 许学文 [Frank Hui] really getting under the skin of the character’s psychotic make-up, especially in some tense sequences between him and an old pal, expertly played by Jiang Haowen 姜皓文 [Philip Keung]. That of professional kidnapper Zhuo Ziqiang, flamboyantly played by Chen Xiaochun 陈小春 [Jordan Chan], is more brightly shot and staged by director Huang Weijie 黄伟杰 [Vicky Wong], while the storyline of armed robber-turned-smuggler Ye Guohan, skilfully morphed by Taiwan’s Ren Xianqi 任贤齐 [Richie Ren], especially at the start, falls somewhere between the two in Ou’s less inflected direction.

The film’s problems stem more from the writing than the direction. The common thread between the three is their frustration in adapting their careers to a “new age” in Hong Kong’s history, which finally results in them deciding to team up on a big job together (better the devil you know than the one you don’t). It’s a neat metaphor for the territory’s limited ability to adapt, which could even be applied to its film industry, and the whole movie actually turns out to be one long shaggy dog story with a final ironic twist. But though Ji Zhengxiong emerges as the most dramatically powerful of the three, he ultimately remains an enigma and his final demise is unworthy of his truly twisted nature. The final demise of Ye Guohan also seems thinly motivated, and not to spring from any deep-seated frustration, while Zhuo Ziqiang’s is more a whimper than a bang.

Technically the whole feature is a smooth package, with especially good use of occasional music (heavy string chords) that stokes the atmosphere and helps to bind the components together, plus art direction that has some fun with period artifacts like mobile phones. And despite its dramatic flaws, on a performance level Triviṣa is still an enjoyable 90 minutes or so, with a top cast (almost totally male) surrounded by a mass of veteran Hong Kong faces in criminal roles. Its evident sympathy for local sleazebags over corrupt Mainland officials marks it as a defiantly Milkyway production, and would appear to make its distribution in China unlikely. But Du & Co. don’t seem to care: this is Hong Kong, they seem to say – for good or bad.

The Chinese title is an idiomatic phrase meaning “a big tree catches the wind”, referring to how famous or rich people can attract attention and therefore trouble. The English one is a Sanskrit word denoting the Buddhist concept of the Three Poisons (bewilderment, greed, hatred) that are the roots of all human suffering. The three main roles are based on real characters, but don’t look at all like them.

CREDITS

Presented by Media Asia Film (HK). Produced by Milkyway Image (Hong Kong) (HK).

Script: Long Wenkang, Wu Qiwei, Mai Tianshu. Photography: Zhang Ying, Zhang Dawei, Chen Haoxin. Editing: David Richardson, Liang Zhanlun. Music: Chen Lezhong. Art direction: Cai Huiyan. Costumes: Ye Shuhua [Sukie Yip]. Sound: Zhu Zhixia. Action: Huang Weiliang [Jack Wong], Yi Tianxiong. Visual effects: Tommy Hellowing, Luo Weihao (Different Digital Design).

Cast: Lin Jiadong [Gordon Lam] (Ji Zhengxiong), Ren Xianqi [Richie Ren] (Ye Guohuan), Chen Xiaochun [Jordan Chan) (Zhuo Ziqiang/Zhang Dabao), Huang Guangliang (gold fence), Yue Hua (He Yuqi), Ou Jintang (Wu, police inspector), Lin Xue [Lam Suet] (Feng, fixer), Yin Yangming [Vincent Wan] (Old Dog), Jiang Haowen [Philip Keung] (Hui), Wu Zhixiong (Ding), Xiong Xinxin (Mainland arms trader).

Premiere: Berlin Film Festival (Forum), 12 Feb 2016.

Release: Hong Kong, 7 Apr 2016.