Life without Principle
夺命金
Hong Kong, 2011, colour, 2.35:1, 103 mins.
Director: Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To].
Rating: 7/10.
Engaging fable on greed and loss of values in Hong Kong society is good but not great.
STORY
Hong Kong, 20 Oct 2010. Zhang Zhengfang (Richie Ren), a police inspector, arrives at a crime scene where one old man, Li Tielin (Luo Qiang), has seriously wounded another, Chen Xi, and fled. Zhang Zhengfang is called away by his wife Connie (Hu Xinger) to inspect a flat she wants to buy, but Zhang Zhengfang is against spending money they don’t have. Meanwhile, at Manton Bank investment clerk Teresa Chen (He Yunshi), under pressure from her boss Jackie (Che Wanwan) to improve her dismal performance, persuades a middle-aged woman, Zheng Xiaojuan (Su Xingxuan), to put all her savings into a high-risk, four-country fund. Connie also visits her to arrange a loan she can’t afford. Teresa Chen’s next client is wealthy loan shark Zhong Yuan (Lu Haipeng), who withdraws HK$10 million for a business transaction but for safety leaves half the cash with Teresa Chen, whom he fancies, saying he’ll collect it later. Trusting her, and in a hurry, he doesn’t get a receipt for it. In the underground car park Zhong Yuan is found bleeding and unconscious from a mugging, with the HK$5 million stolen, and Teresa Chen presumes he’s dead. Some time earlier, petty triad Three-Legged Panther (Liu Qingyun) is running around trying to raise money to bail out a superior, Wu Yaohua (Zhang Zhaohui), who’s being harrassed by Zhang Zhengfang and his team for intimidation. One former colleague he approaches, Luo Xiaolong (Jiang Haowen), teaches him the rudiments of share trading, into which he’s now moved. But on 20 October the market suddenly crashes due to the Greek bankruptcy crisis, and Luo Xiaolong finds himself in debt to ruthless triad Song (Yin Ziwei). Desperate, Luo Xiaolong asks Three-Legged Panther to help him get a loan.
REVIEW
Arguably the most “personal” film of Hong Kong director Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To] since Sparrow 文雀 (2008), Life without Principle 夺命金 is more interesting for the way it treats its theme than the theme itself. On the surface, it’s a hardly original black comedy-cum-corkscrew drama about the way in which Hong Kong and its people live and die through their obsession with money, money, money; beneath that, however, it’s also a rather sad elegy, like Sparrow, for the way in which its society has lost its principles of loyalty and brotherhood that helped bind its relentlessly mercantile mind-set together.
For Du, those principles have always been summed up (for good or bad) by traditional triad values, which he’s put under the microscope in a myriad of previous movies. In Life, however, they’re only maintained by the comically deferential character of Three-Legged Panther (Liu Qingyun 刘青云 [Lau Ching-wan]), a triad foot-soldier in old-style flowery shirt and sandals, with an eager-beaver attitude and a perpetual nervous twitch around the eyes. Panther’s friends have all moved on: one (played by Huang Rihua 黄日华) into recycling cardboard for more money, another (Jiang Haowen 姜皓文 [Philip Keung]) into legit share-trading. Panther and his values seem sadly old-fashioned, as he scrabbles around for small-time cash while the big money is being made by the modern-day crooks of electronic banking and fund investment.
Panther’s story occupies the central half-hour of the movie and throws the other two (centred on the upright cop of Taiwan’s Ren Xianqi 任贤齐 [Richie Ren] and the pressured bank employee of Hong Kong’s Ho Yunshi 何韵诗) into the shade. Only when the writers start scrambling the stories together in the final 40 minutes, with some typically clever manipulation of time and perception, does the film start to really grip on a dramatic level. But Ren’s police detective (with a token backstory of a dying father and a property-addicted wife) and He’s conflicted investment advisor (faced with an opportunity to steal some cash) don’t form equal sides of what is meant to be a triangular structure: in Ren’s flat performance, the former comes over as just a boringly procedural cop and, in Cantopopster-actress He’s buttoned-up but much more interesting performance, the latter is given no strong motive for turning criminal.
Script weaknesses like these dilute an otherwise smart and engaging movie. Contrary to many Du films – which are gripping for the first hour but lose control after that – Life is at its best in its third act, as the financial market which has so far held together various perilous lives suddenly collapses and sends the characters into free-fall, and the viewer is shown earlier events from a different angle. The wrap-up is less successful, and the story resolutions don’t progress the characters in any way: Du doesn’t so much pass judgement on his fellow Hong Kongers’ obsession with money as cast a wry, ironic eye on its downside.
Dramatically, Liu dominates the movie – not with especially notable acting but with a performance that, in its nervous black humour, sums up the film’s central melancholy. Life would have worked even better if his character (who here doesn’t even appear until the half-hour mark) had been the main one rather than part of a lead trio. Supporting roles are all solidly drawn, especially among the criminal element with which the writers seem most at home: Jiang’s blustering share-trader, Yin Ziwei 尹子维 [Terence Yin] as his creepy nemesis, Lu Haipeng 卢海鹏 as an oily loan shark and Zhang Zhaohui 张兆辉 as a proud triad who’s always being arrested.
Technical credits are as professional as usual for a Milkway Image production. The film’s original Chinese title is less moralistic and more bottom-line – literally, “Life-Threatening Money”.
CREDITS
Presented by Media Asia Films (HK). Produced by Milkway Image (HK).
Script: Milkyway Creative Team, Ou Jian’er [Au Kin-yee], Huang Jinhui. Photography: Zheng Zhaoqiang [Cheng Siu-keung]. Editing: David Richardson, Liang Zhanlun. Music: uncredited. Production design: Ye Shuhua. Costume design: Ye Shuhua. Sound: Mai Zhi’an, Zhu Zhixia. Executive director: Mai Qiguang.
Cast: Liu Qingyun [Lau Ching-wan] (Three-Legged Panther), Ren Xianqi [Richie Ren] (Zhang Zhengfang, police inspector), He Yunshi (Teresa Chen), Hu Xinger (Connie, Zhang Zhengfang’s wife), Lu Haipeng (Zhong Yuan, loan shark), Su Xingxuan (Zheng Xiaojuan, middle-aged female investor), Jiang Haowen [Philip Keung] (Luo Xiaolong/Tuyan Long/Pop-Eyed Dragon), Zhang Zhaohui (Wu Yaohua/Baishanhua), Huang Rihua (Huobaosen/Sam, Three-Legged Panther’s ex-triad friend), Huang Zhixian (Li Haoda), Che Wanwan (Jackie, Teresa Chen’s boss), Jia Xiaochen (Miss He), Chen Ziyao (Teresa Chu), Yin Ziwei [Terence Yin] (Song), Tan Bingwen (Li Kun, triad boss), Liang Junyi (Guan Dawen), Li Zhaoji (Xi), Wu Zixiong (B), Luo Yongchang [Law Wing-cheong] (Rong), Shi Zunan (Song’s sidekick), Hong Weiliang (restaurant manager at Kun’s birthday banquet), Huang Ying (Helen), Luo Qiang (Li Tielin).
Premiere: Venice Film Festival (Competition), 9 Sep 2011.
Release: Hong Kong, 20 Oct 2011.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 1 Apr 2012.)