SPL2: A Time for Consequences

杀破狼II

Hong Kong/China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 3-D (China only), 120 mins.

Director: Zheng Baorui 郑保瑞 [Soi Cheang].

Rating: 6/10.

Unrelated “sequel” to SPL is a big, splashy mess, with a chaotic script.

STORY

Hong Kong, the present day. The terminally ill Hong Wengang (Gu Tianle) heads an international syndicate that kidnaps people to Thailand, stores them in Bangkok’s North Klong Prem Prison under its corrupt chief warden Gao Jin (Zhang Jin) – who owes Hong Wengang for once saving his life – and then kills them to harvest their organs for selling on the black market. Undercover cop Chen Zhijie (Wu Jing) has infiltrated Hong Wengang’s organisation but in his devotion to duty has become a junkie – a source of concern to his minder, police detective Chen Guohua (Ren Dahua), who is also his uncle. Hong Wengang urgently needs a heart transplant, and has no option but to kidnap his younger brother, Hong Wenbiao (Gong Shuoliang), and use him as a donor. Chen Zhijie is told to help with the kidnap and tips off Chen Guohua first. In the resulting shoot-out at Ocean Terminal, Hong Wenbiao is wounded but rescued by the police. However, Chen Zhijie is rumbled and taken to Thailand, where he’s incarcerated in North Klong Prem Prison. The traffickers call Chen Guohua and offer to exchange him for Hong Wenbiao. Chen Zhijie tries to escape from the brutal prison but is unsuccessful. Meanwhile, prison warden Chatchai (Tony Jaa), whose eight-year old daughter Sa (Unda Kunteera Thordchanng) has leukaemia and needs a bone-marrow transplant, realises that Chen Zhijie is the same person whose name he found on Sa’s confidential medical file as the Hong Kong “anonymous donor”. Chatchai knows what is going on at the prison under Gao but keeps quiet to protect his job. In Hong Kong, Hong Wengang contacts Chen Guohua and repeats the offer of an exchange. After leaving Hong Wenbiao under police guard, Chen Guohua eventually travels to Bangkok, where he bribes Chatchai’s colleague, Huang Guang (Lu Huiguang), to get him into the prison so he can make contact with Chen Zhijie. Unfortunately, Chen Guohua is caught, and the chief warden orders Chatchai and Huang Guang to take Chen Guohua and Chen Zhijie to the place where victims’ organs are removed. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong a female assassin (Zhang Chi) working for Hong Wengang kidnaps Hong Wenbiao and transports him to a Bangkok medical centre for the heart operation.

REVIEW

The memory of explosive action drama SPL 杀破狼 (2005), with Sammo Hung 洪金宝, Donnie Yen 甄子丹 and China’s Wu Jing 吴京 on top form, is done no favours by SPL2: A Time for Consequences 杀破狼II, a chaotically constructed yarn about organ-traffickers that even manages to squander the combined talent of some of Asia’s top martial-arts performers. Though the original’s writer-director, Ye Weixin 叶伟信 [Wilson Yip], returns in a producing role, SPL2 is only a sequel in name, with no relation to the first movie and two of the original leads (Wu, Ren Dahua 任达华 [Simon Yam]) in different roles. The over-stuffed, over-complex script is more an annoying distraction than a dramatic aide in a movie that, apart from some individual action sequences, is one big, splashy mess. It’s especially disappointing coming from Hong Kong director Zheng Baorui 郑保瑞 [Soi Cheang], whose maverick career showed early promise (Diamond Hill 发光石头, 2000; Horror Hotline…Big Head Monster 恐怖热线之大头怪婴, 2001) but as of now, seemingly for want of strong producers, can be said to have peaked creatively a few years ago with Accident 意外 (2009) and Motorway 车手 (2012), both produced by Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To].

Given the talent involved, there’s really no excuse for such a poorly constructed effort. Much of the blame can be laid at the feet of lead writer Liang Liyan 梁礼彦 [Jill Leung], whose career is already littered with similarly choppy scripts: period martial arts drama Champions 夺标 (2008),  crime horror Revenge: A Love Story 复仇者之死 (2010), faux-arty horror Rigor Mortis 僵尸 (2013), firefighter drama As the Light Goes Out 救火英雄 (2014). As well as continually zipping back and forth between Hong Kong and Bangkok, the screenplay isn’t helped by having twice as many characters and storylines than it needs, as well as by a confusing intro and by an early flashback that clumsily fills in the complicated backstory.

Once that’s out of the way, the story continues to careen between various strands, including a Bangkok warden (Thai martial arts star Tony Jaa) whose young daughter needs a bone-marrow transplant, his devoted friend and colleague (Thai Chinese action veteran Lu Huiguang 卢惠光 [Ken Lo]), a sadistic chief warden (China’s Zhang Jin 张晋), and a Hong Kong detective (Ren) and his druggie nephew who’s working undercover (Wu). These archetypes are at least recognisable from the action-genre catalogue. But they’re topped by a criminal mastermind who’s more ridiculous than menacing, especially as played by Hong Kong’s Gu Tianle 古天乐 [Louis Koo] as a sickly weirdo with a walking stick, mumbly voice and rock-star curtain of hair.

Though Jaa is top-billed, he consistently looks like a guest star in an essentially Chinese movie, with a soppy backstory that just gets in the way of the main plot and one scene – in which he has a conversation via a mobile phone’s global translator – that’s ludicrous in the circumstances. With Ren phoning in his gruff Hong Kong cop, and Wu playing a character who’s out of his mind on drugs much of the time, the only memorable playing comes from rising Mainland name Zhang (The Grandmaster 一代宗师, 2013; Rise of the Legend 黄飞鸿  英雄有梦, 2014), as the Bangkok prison’s ruthless chief warden who remains sartorially elegant amid the scruffy surroundings. It’s in the prison scenes that director Zheng seems most at home – and comes closest to the dark violence of his earlier films Dog Bite Dog 狗咬狗, 2006, and Shamo 军鸡, 2007 – and Zhang makes a charismatic villain here.

Action sequences are individually okay, led by one elaborately choreographed sequence that combines a prison riot with an attempt by Wu’s character to escape. Others, that are more gun-led (like a shootout at Hong Kong’s Ocean Terminal), are more sound and fury, with no overall sense of what is going on. Most disappointing – given the talent employed – is the grand finale, in which Jaa, Zhang and Lu get few chances to display their martial arts skills at any length thanks to over-elaborate cross-cutting. As the seemingly unbeatable baddie, Zhang fares the best in a demonstration of whiplash power; but the finale is then capped by a vertiginous sequence in which the characters are literally left hanging.

Craft contributions are strongest on a design level, with memorable sets by Ma Guangrong 马光荣 [Horace Ma] for both the grungy, warehousey prison (all ochres and blacks) and the clean, white interiors of the finale. The music score, which cobbles together songs, Mozart’s Requiem, and Summer from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, is as slapdash as the script.

“SPL” stands for shā pò láng 杀破狼, an abbreviation for three star signs in Chinese astrology that denote killing/power, conquest/destruction and greed/lust, the last symbolised by a wolf. That presumably explains the appearance of the slobbering animal in a mystifying scene near the end, which otherwise has nothing to do with anything. At a reported budget of HK$100 million, SPL2 cost three times as much as the original film, which just goes to show money can’t buy everything.

CREDITS

Presented by Sun Entertainment Culture (HK), Sil-Metropole Organisation (HK), Bona Film Group (CN), Maximum Gain Kapital Group (HK). Produced by Tin Tin Film (HK).

Script: Liang Liyan [Jill Leung], Huang Ying. Photography: Xie Zhongdao [Kenny Tse]. Editing: David Richardson. Music: Chen Guangrong [Comfort Chan], Chen Jiaye. Art direction: Ma Guangrong [Horace Ma]. Costumes: Yu Jia’an [Bruce Yu], Guo Shumin [Petra Kwok]. Sound: Chen Zhijian, Teekhayu Kongchayut, Zheng Yingyuan, Ye Zhaoji. Action: Lu Huiguang [Ken Lo], Li Zhongzhi [Nicky Li]. Car stunts: Li Weiliang. Visual effects: Yu Guoliang (Free-D Workshop). Second unit photography: Fu Jiayu.

Cast: Tony Jaa (Chatchai), Wu Jing (Chen Zhijie), Simon Yam (Chen Guohua, Chen Zhijie’s uncle), Zhang Jin (Gao Jin, the chief prison warden), Gu Tianle [Louis Koo] (Hong Wengang), Lu Huiguang [Ken Lo] (Huang Guang, Chatchai’s colleague), Gong Shuoliang (Hong Wenbiao, Hong Wengang’s younger brother), Lin Jiahua (Zhang Zhendong, Chen Guohua’s police boss), Cai Hanyi (Guo Junyi), Ai Wei [Wilson Tsui] (Da Kou/Big Mouth), Unda Kunteera Thordchanng (Sa, Chatchai’s daughter), Yuan Jiamin (Fang Yongqin, Hong Wenbiao’s wife), Jiang Haowen [Philip Keung] (Fan Jinxiong/Black Bear, smuggling boss), Peng Huaian (Hong Wengang’s aide), Zhang Chi (Hong Wengang’s deaf-mute female assassin), Zhou Zhijun (Zhou Yongcheng), Zhan Zhizhi (Chen Zhijie’s wife), He Lexian (female passenger), Yang Huiya (receptionist), Wu Yuqi (Uncle An).

Release: Hong Kong, 18 Jun 2015; China, 18 Jun 2015.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 24 Jul 2015.)