Husband Killers
女士复仇
Hong Kong, 2017, colour, 2.35:1, 95 mins.
Director: Li Jiarong 李家荣 [Fire Lee 火火].
Rating: 7/10.
Largely enjoyable riff on trashy female-assassin movies unfortunately lacks a third act.
STORY
Hong Kong, the present day. Two professional assassins, Chanel Tsui (Deng Lixin) and Dior Mok (Zhou Xiuna), are also best friends. However, when Chanel Tsui discovers that Dior Mok is the lover of her husband, and when Dior Mok discovers Chanel Tsui is the lover of her boyfriend, each decides to assassinate the other. Instead, they end up talking and, when Chanel Tsui finds her husband, David Chow (Gu Tianxiang), has checked into a seedy love hotel on his birthday – presumably with another woman – she and Dior Mok both decide to pay him a surprise visit. Taking a room, they unwittingly travel up in the lift with that woman, Hermes Tong (Le Ji’er), who in Room 402 discovers that David Chow has dumped her and left. When Chanel Tsui calls the room – intending to surprise the lovers – Hermes Tong, who is a Special Duties Unit team leader, says she’s been dumped by David Chow and is going to kill him. Before that, she adds, she’s going to have Chanel Tsui killed by the woman next to her, Dior Mok. Following a roof-top face-off between Chanbel Tsui and Dior Mok, a game of cat-and-mouse takes place inside the hotel between them and Hermes Tong. This is calmly observed by the staff – hotel owner Sister Lingxuan (Sun Jiajun), her elder son, receptionist Dao Bao (Li Jianhong), and her younger son, cook Er Bao (Ni Meng) – who then turn on the three assassins.
REVIEW
Stylised crime capers sit uneasily alongside Category III nods in black comedy Husband Killers 女士复仇, a faux-trashy genre romp by Hong Kong maverick Li Jiarong 李家荣 that, like his previous films, aims to be a smart riff on a familiar format but doesn’t quite fulfil its ambitions. After an intriguing start and interesting development, the movie hits the Hong Kong Third-Act Problem, unable to take the material any farther and falling back on jokey shocks for their own sake. A classy performance by veteran genre actress Sun Jiajun 孙佳君, plus an extended coda, partly puts the film back on track but doesn’t really resolve the tonal weakness at the heart of the screenplay. Despite that, Killers is well worth a fun look, and often surprisingly good.
Forty-two-year-old Li, aka Fire Lee 火火, has a broad range of experience as an actor and writer as well as musicvideo director, but it’s his interest in theatre that’s the strongest influence on his two prior films, Love in Time 等 我爱你 (2012) and Robbery 老笠 (2015), as well as here. (His actual debut as a film director, the conventional rom-com Give Love 爱得起, 2009, co-directed with mentor Ma Weihao 马伟豪 [Joe Ma], can be safely ignored.) Both Love and Robbery took familiar genres – the odd-couple rom-com and all-through-the-night minimart saga – and twisted them in a very theatrical (and sometimes extreme) way. Large chunks of Husband Killers also have the feel they’ve been written with a eye for the stage, or at least could work just as well on it. That’s not a bad thing, and gives the first half a solid, well-constructed feel as what starts like a larky trashfest – Deng Lixin 邓丽欣 [Stephy Tang] and Zhou Xiuna 周秀娜 [Chrissie Chau] as sexy frenemy assassins (yeah!) – turns into a stylised crime caper as the action shifts to a love hotel and a rogue SDU officer (played by Chinese-Vietnamese model Le Ji’er 乐基儿) is bled into the plot.
The lack of a proper third act, and the sudden lurch into Category III black comedy, in some ways fits with Li’s liking for suddenly shocking the viewer (the ending of Love; some of the sex and violence in Robbery); but it’s more disruptive in Husband Killers because of the classy way in which the material has evolved up to the 55-minute mark. Deng, 34, who was fine as the co-lead in Love, pairs well with the more obviously trashy Zhou, 33, as the two pro killers who find they’ve amorously betrayed each other and been betrayed; and both actresses, like the whole film, send themselves up in an understated way, with Deng the more skilful. Despite her relative lack of acting experience, Macau-born Le, 37, who was with Deng in My Sweetie 甜丝丝 (2004), adds a formidable presence as the third woman in the love equation, but it’s the arrival of Singapore-born Sun, 43, in centre stage as the love hotel’s owner that gives a hint of what Husband Killers could have been with a top-flight cast.
Other roles are okay but way over-egged: Hong Kong pop drummers Ni Meng 泥鯭 and Li Jianhong 李健宏 as the hotel owner’s idiot sons, the first a retarded cook and the second a hotel receptionist who can’t stop masturbating. The widescreen photography by new name Gu Weilin 古伟麟 brings a smart look to the budget production, and editing by the experienced Chen Qihe 陈祺合 [Chan Ki-hop] brings everything in at a tight hour-and-a-half. Action staging and execution are so-so. The film’s Chinese title means “Lady Avengers”.
CREDITS
Presented by Big Honor Entertainment (HK), Local Production (HK), Mega Step International Group (HK). Produced by Local Production (HK).
Script: Lia Jiarong [Fire Lee], Yang Liangquan. Photography: Gu Weilin. Editing: Chen Qihe [Chan Ki-hop]. Music: Deng Zhiwei, Zhuang Dongxin. Songs: Ye Zhaozhong. Art direction: Huang Minxuan. Styling: Zhang Zhanjun. Sound: Lu Zhiwei, Chen Weixiong, Li Zhixiong. Action: Yi Tianxiong, Liang Bosi. Visual effects: Deng Dongming, Peng Zhenguo (CG House).
Cast: Deng Lixin [Stephy Tang] (Chanel Tsui), Zhou Xiuna [Chrissie Chau] (Dior Mok), Le Ji’er (Hermes Tong), Sun Jiajun (Sister Lingxuan), Li Jianhong (Da Bao, receptionist), Ni Meng [LaiMaan@RubberBand] (Er Bao, cook), Guo Weiliang (Lu Peirong, boss), Wang Zhi’an (Erfujia/Tony), Sen Mei (husband with gun), Zhou Jiayi (hostage wife), He Ao’er (Michelle Lee), Gu Tianxiang (David Chow, Chanel Tsui’s husband).
Premiere: Osaka Asian Film Festival (Special Focus on HK 2017), 10 Mar 2017.
Release: Hong Kong, 7 Dec 2017.