Cyberheist

断网

Hong Kong/China, 2023, colour, 2.35:1, 109 mins.

Director: Huang Qingxun 黄庆勋 [Danny Wong].

Rating: 5/10.

Crime drama centred on an IT specialist targeted by a money-laundering gang is thin fare beneath all the VFX.

STORY

Hong Kong, the present day. Hackers attack 12 accounts totalling HK$1.5 billion in Wansheng [Man Seng] Bank, which alerts Tianji International Cybersecurity to protect it. The attack is actually organised by two executives at Tianji – Fan Defu (Huang Debin) and his superior Chen Mingzhi (Lin Jiadong) – who are part of an international money-laundering gang. Tianji employee Zhuo Jiajun (Guo Fucheng) halts the attack at the last moment by launching his own software programme Firewall X and manages to save three accounts – much to the chagrin of his immediate boss Fan Defu, as well as Chen Mingzhi. Afterwards, Chen Mingzhi lets his anger out on Fan Defu, but the latter stands his ground, saying it’s he, not Chen Mingzhi, who takes all the risks. Meanwhile, Sun Bin (Ren Dahua), head of the Hong Kong Police’s Cybersecurity & Technology Crime Bureau (CSTCB), suspects someone at Tianji is exploiting holes in banks’ firewalls, as there’s been four cases of cyberattacks on Wansheng Bank alone. He orders his staff to check if any Tianji employees have opened foreign bank accounts, and they find Fan Defu has a mystery credit of HK$10 million. Local head of the moneylaudering gang, Pang (Kuang Tinghe), has also discovered Fan Defu has been getting greedy; by threatening Chen Mingzhi’s younger brother, Chen Mingwei (Gu Dingxuan), he forces Chen Mingzhi to invite Fan Defu, plus his wife and child, to a reconciliatory dinner. En route, Fan Defu’s car computer system is hacked and the whole family dies in the crash. Pang also orders Chen Mingzhi to find a scapegoat. For his work in protecting Wansheng Bank, Chen Mingzhi promotes Zhuo Jiajun in a package that includes a new home for him, his wife (Lai Yayan) and young daughter (Su Yuxian) who is still socially traumatised by a heart operation she went through three years ago. The extra money also enables Zhuo Jiajun to enrol his daughter in a prestigious international school. However, Zhuo Jiajun soon discovers that his new home has been bugged and his home computer system hacked. Then, Chen Mingzhi invites Zhuo Jiajun to join the money-laundering gang, using a past crime by Zhuo Jiajun (selling computer viruses online, back in 2005) to pressure him. However, Sun Bin, who’s noticed the extra money in Zhuo Jiajun’s account, brings him in for questioning, saying he knows all about Zhuo Jiajun’s criminal past. The latter agrees to co-operate in trapping Chen Mingzhi during his next cyberattack. But when Chen Mingzhi rumbles Zhuo Jiajun halfway through the cyberattack, first Zhuo Jiajun and then his daughter are targeted by Pang’s heavies.

REVIEW

Longtime assistant director Huang Qingxun 黄庆勋 [Danny Wong], who finally turned director with Hong Kong homelessness drama I’m Livin’ It 麦路人 (2019), takes a 180-degree career swerve with his second outing, money-laundering thriller Cyberheist 断网. Again starring Guo Fucheng 郭富城 [Aaron Kwok], this time as an IT security specialist who’s targeted by the gang, the film is largely kept afloat by some reliable supports, including Lin Jiadong 林家栋 [Gordon Lam] as one of the bad guys and Ren Dahua 任达华 [Simon Yam] as a grizzled cybersecurity cop, rather than by Guo’s vanilla performance or the purely generic script. The small amount of human drama is further diluted by the hacking process being visualised in human terms (remember Tron, some 40 years ago?), with the actors in clear plastic masks battling viruses and firewalls in a kind of electronic forest – a simplistic, old-fashioned idea that adds nothing. The picture flopped locally last month, with a tiny HK$5 million, even less than Huang’s much more modest drama I’m Livin’ It (HK$8.3 million); in the Mainland, where it was released a week earlier, the coproduction took a meh RMB65 million.

Huang has worked as an a.d. to many of the biggest local names since the 1990s, including Zheng Baorui 郑保瑞 [Soi Cheang], who was creative producer on I’m Livin’ It and takes the same position on Cyberheist. The three Hong Kong writers all come from genre backgrounds: both Lv Guannan 吕冠南 and Ye Minghao 叶铭浩 are regulars with director/producer Wang Jing 王晶 [Wong Jing], and worked together on Wang’s Chasing the Dragon II: Wild Wild Bunch 追龙II 贼王 (2019), while the less experienced Cen Junxi 岑君茜 more recently co-wrote the serial-killer super-noir Limbo 智齿 (2021), directed by Zheng. Strip out all the computer mumbo-jumbo, the flashing screens, and fingers racing across keyboards, and Cyberheist is basically a generic Hong Kong crime thriller, with familiar tropes like an innocent-scapegoat-with-a-dodgy-past, his young daughter with health problems, a phlegmatic veteran cop, and so on. Guo’s computer-geek character suddenly discovers acrobatic skills during a chase sequence, and there’s even a brief femme-on-femme fight between the hero’s wife and the top villain’s henchwoman – played by Yang Liuqing 杨柳青, in her scowly The Leakers 泄密者们 (2018)/Guilt by Design 催眠•裁决 (2019) mode – that recalls any number of action potboilers. The most original element is that a couple of the villains are the main character’s superiors in the anti-cybercrime company where he works.

With more stress on the characters, and less on cartoony firewalls and viruses and IT visual effects, Cyberheist could have been an okay thriller, though the thin background to the plotting – with the money-laundering operation vague at best, let alone how people like the hero’s boss came to be involved – doesn’t leave much scope for the characters to develop. As usual, Guo tries hard but ends up colourless and unconvincing in his role as the brilliant but financially-strapped employee who’s developed a super-firewall of his own that stops the money launderers in their tracks and thereby earns their attention. As his two-faced boss, Lin almost steals the film, sliding effortlesly between oily charm, hard-faced authority and toadying fear – though he’s run a close second by Ren, who starts slowly as the cybercop but gradually layers his character with as much shading as possible.

As the hero’s wife, Taiwan actress Lai Yayan (the stern lesbian barista in Cafe. Waiting. Love 等 一个人 咖啡, 2014) doesn’t have much to do apart from looking longingly at her husband and daughter, though as 10,000 Miles 一万公里的约定 (2016) showed she’s capable of much more. Veteran character actor Huang Debin 黄德斌 [Kenny Wong] has a couple of forceful scenes in the early going. Kuang Tinghe 邝庭和, whose day job used to be as a d.p. (My Kingdom 大武生, 2011; Kung Fu League 功夫联盟, 2018), pops up in a memorable scene as the head villain.

The score by Canada’s Josh Cruddas (10,000 Miles) is standard synths wallpaper, pumping along the action. Widescreen images by Zheng Zhaoqiang 郑兆强 [Cheng Siu-keung] are fine, especially in interiors showing off the production design design by fellow veteran Wen Nianzhong 文念中 [Man Lim-chung]. Though it has a 2023 copyright date in the end titles, Cyberheist was actually shot almost three years ago, during Jun-Oct 2020, and passed for release in the Mainland in late 2021. The end credits alone run for 10 minutes.

CREDITS

Presented by Sil-Metropole Organisation (HK), Guangdong Sublime Media (CN), Entertaining Power (HK), Media Asia Distribution (Beijing) (CN), Zhejiang Lian Ray Pictures (CN). Produced by Sil-Metropole Organisation (HK), Entertaining Power (HK).

Script: Lv Guannan, Ye Minghao, Cen Junxi. Photography: Zheng Zhaoqiang [Cheng Siu-keung]. Editing: Zeng Yujian. Music: Josh Cruddas. Production design: Wen Nianzhong [Man Lim-chung]. Art direction: Li Guolin. Costume design: Chen Baoxin. Action: Deng Ruihua. Car stunts: Wu Haitang. Sound: Chen Zhijian, Zheng Minghui, Yang Zhichao, Tan Jinghua. Visual effects: Lin Hongfeng, Lin Junyu, He Wenluo, Yu Guoliang (Free-D Workshop).

Cast: Guo Fucheng [Aaron Kwok] (Zhuo Jiajun/Kelvin), Lin Jiadong [Gordon Lam] (Chen Mingzhi/Kenneth), Ren Dahua [Simon Yam] (Sun Bin/Ben), Lai Yayan (Du Yongshan/Sandy, Zhuo Jiajun’s wife), Huang Debin [Kenny Wong] (Fan Defu/Frankie), Hu Zitong (Tom, hacker), Gu Dingxuan (Chen Mingwei, Chen Mingzhi’s younger brother), Yang Liuqing (Wang Lin, Pang’s henchwoman), Huang Yaohuang (Tan Zhigang/Kenny), Li Kaixian [Brian Siswojo] (Mike, US computer friend of Zhuo Jiajun), Tan Yaowen (Zhou Shihao/Jason), Kuang Tinghe (Pang), Huang Wenhui (Qing), Tang Yi (Feng Meili/May, Chen Mingzhi’s secretary), Zou Wenzheng (Damon), Su Yuexian (Zhuo Bao’er/Bowie, Zhuo Jiajun’s daughter), Li Kangqi (teacher).

Release: Hong Kong, 9 Mar 2023, China, 3 Mar 2023.