Europe Raiders

欧洲攻略

China/Hong Kong, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 100 mins.

Director: Ma Chucheng 马楚成 [Jingle Ma].

Rating: 6/10.

Slick but familiar slice of action fluff is held together by a stylish performance from Hong Kong’s Liang Chaowei [Tony Leung Chiu-wai].

STORY

Italian Alps, 24 Dec 2006. Skiing down to a mountain chalet, freelance troubleshooter Lin Zaifeng (Liang Chaowei) rescues the two children of computer scientist Mercury (Lin Zixiang) who are being held hostage for US$200 million by the Mafia. Afterwards, at a Xmas dinner in Milan’s Chinatown, Mercury shows Lin Zaifeng the plans of a secure prison that he wants the US’ Central Investigation Agency (CIA) to build for him so he can develop his mass-surveillance system Hand of God 上帝之手. Mercury spends 10 years developing the system, which the CIA then uses for nefarious purposes, before dying in the self-styled Prison Six. Rome, 2018. The CIA’s server is hacked and the Hand of God programme is stolen. In Shanghai, 18 hours later, freelance troubleshooter Wang Chaoying (Tang Yan) is asked by CIA officer Peter Rosen (Jakob Graf) to help trace Lin Zaifeng. A trap is set for him at a Milan restaurant and Lin Zaifeng is told that CIA terrorism operative Su Fei stole Hand of God and left behind Lin Zaifeng’s name card. He initially refuses to help but when Wang Chaoying – a onetime romantic interest and competitor of Lin Zaifeng – is hired instead, Lin Zaifeng agrees to co-operate, if only to prove he’s still the best. Su Fei contacts Lin Zaifeng and threatens to publish the source code of Hand of God unless the CIA releases a hacker called Rocky (Wu Yifan) within 72 hours. Lin Zaifeng guesses that Su Fei and Rocky are Mercury’s daughter and son. Wang Chaoying says Su Fei stole Hand of God as part of her revenge on Lin Zaifeng for turning her father over to the CIA and letting it use his invention for evil purposes. She wants to harm the person Lin Zaifeng loves most, and has co-opted a mafioso (Sergio De Ieso) to work for her by paying him US$100 million. Lin Zaifeng and Wang Chaoying meet Rocky in a CIA Milan safe house but he refuses to tell them where Su Fei is. The Mafia attack but Lin Zaifeng, Wang Chaoying and Rocky escape to Lin Zaifeng’s safe house in Chinatown, where Rocky meets his late father’s three devoted fighters (Yuan Qiu, Liu Jiarong, Luo Mang). The Mafia attack again to try to get Rocky but evenntually fail. Rocky then tells Lin Zaifeng that he developed a second protocol for Hand of God that can control any weapons system worldwide. The electronic key to it is what Su Fei wants – and, when it learns about it, also the CIA.

REVIEW

After a decade of flops since the solidly successful Mulan 花木兰 (2009), veteran Hong Kong d.p.-cum-director Ma Chucheng 马楚成 [Jingle Ma] returns to the big-budget action arena with Europe Raiders 欧洲攻略, a belated third outing in a franchise he launched at the turn of the century with CNY hit Tokyo Raiders 东京攻略 (2000) and then followed with the damp squib Seoul Raiders 韩城攻略 (2005). Just as the latter tried to hitch a ride on the all-things-Korean craze of the time, so the present outing does the same with the current Mainland liking for Chinese showing off in high-toned European locations. The most lavishly packaged of the three – with Ma again his own d.p. – and lacking the hasty, pinched feel of Seoul, it’s a smooth piece of throwaway entertainment that’s again held together by the stylish performance of Hong Kong veteran Liang Chaowei 梁朝伟 [Tony Leung Chiu-wai] as a super-cool troubleshooter who won’t let even a major action sequence disturb his morning espresso. Alas, Mainland audiences were unimpressed, forking out a mere RMB152 million (only half the film’s reported budget) after perhaps noticing that Europe is basically the same old thing Hong Kong has been dishing up for decades.

Beneath all its high tech and visual flash, Europe is basically a 1980s Hong Kong action film at heart – and has a script to match. Like its predecessors, it preserves the franchise’s trick that all is not as first seems, but this time the Final Twist is more elaborate and more unbelievable. As various Chinese run rings round the CIA (here called the Central Investigation Agency) and the Italian Mafia, one of the central plot points is the use of Klingon in the dialogue. Yes, Klingon.

The only common element in all three films – apart from director Ma – Liang plays the same type of roving troubleshooter as in Tokyo and Seoul, though here he’s been given a different name (Lin Zaifeng 林在风 – “Forest in the Wind” – rather than Lin Guiren 林贵仁). This time he’s also not surrounded by a team of action babes; but he’s still a charming lothario whose romantic past provides the most resonant scenes – specifically his mutual flirting with (in a nod to the times) a female competitor to his super-agent crown. Shanghai-born Tang Yan 唐嫣, 34, who energised the spoofy A Chinese Odyssey: Part Three 大话西游3 (2016) as a schizophrenic fairy and ate up the gold-digging glamour-puss role in MBA Partners 梦想合伙人 (2016), fits the bill as Liang’s romantic/professional sparring partner and gives the Hong Kong veteran – now in his mid-50s but still looking a good 10 years younger – a run for his money. Though Tang can swill a wine glass or leap across rooftops with equal conviction, it’s still Liang’s lead performance that anchors the film’s serio-comic tone, often sending up the cartoony antics.

That’s just as well, as the rest of the cast are largely by-the-numbers. In a role that plays to her exotic strengths, Shanghai-born actress-model Du Juan 杜鹃, 36, is all flashing looks and slinky evil as the super-hacker who steals the all-powerful computer programme, while Mainland-born, Vancouver-raised singer-actor Wu Yifan 吴亦凡 [Kris Wu] has almost no personality at all as her computer-geek younger brother she wants out of jail. Even Liang can’t coax anything out of the pretty but blank Wu, which means the film has no strong male partnership to match the romantic one between Liang and Yan. In a throwback to Hong Kong’s glory days, actor-singer Lin Zixiang 林子祥 [George Lam] comes out of film retirement as the kids’ kindly scientist father; more out of time and place, veteran martial artists Yuan Qiu 元秋, Liu Jiayong 刘家勇 and Luo Mang 罗莽 play a trio of eccentric fighters that’s straight out of a 1970s Shaw Brothers film and not very amusing at all. Even wierder, once-hot Thai martial artist Yanin “Jeeja” Vismistananda ญาณิน “จีจ้า” วิสมิตะนันทน์ (Chocolate ช็อคโกแลต, 2008; Raging Phoenix จีจ้า ดื้อ สวย ดุ, 2009) is thrown away, and barely recognisable, as a generic assassin.

It’s the de luxe production that carries the movie over all the acting and script bumps. Doubtless reflecting the input this time of Hong Kong style-meister Wang Jiawei 王家卫 [Wong Kar-wai] via his longtime production associate Peng Qihua 彭绮华 [Jacky Pang], here credited as creative producer 监制, the film’s budget is all up on the screen, from the opening skiing sequence to the multiple chases, gun battles and explosions. Ma’s rich, light-play photography of the Italian locations through the styling by Hong Kong aces Xi Zhongwen 奚仲文 [Yee Chung-man] and Wu Lilu 吴里璐 [Dora Ng] to the slickly mounted action by Cheng Long 成龙 [Jackie Chan] alumnus Han Guanhua 韩冠华. The jittery, semi-documentary look of Tokyo and the characterless coolness of Seoul are both absent, replaced by a super-glossy sheen of European wish-fulfilment and cultural train-spotting that’s effective on a pop level.

CREDITS

Presented by Block 2 Pictures (HK), Shanghai Inlook Advertising (CN). Produced by Shanghai Zishidong Media (CN), Jet Tone Film (HK), Haining Inlook Media (CN).

Script: Xiaopeng. Photography: Ma Chucheng [Jingle Ma]. Editing: Zhang Jiahui [Cheung Ka-fai]. Music: Jin Peida [Peter Kam]. Art direction: Mai Hanheng. Styling: Xi Zhongwen [Yee Chung-man], Wu Lilu [Dora Ng] (for Liang Chaowei, Du Juan); Bai Yiting, Bai Yike (others). Action: Han Guanhua. Visual effects:

Cast: Liang Chaowei [Tony Leung Chiu-wai] (Lin Zaifeng), Wu Yifan [Kris Wu] (Luoqi/Rocky), Tang Yan (Wang Chaoying), Du Juan (Su Fei/Sophie), Lin Zixiang [George Lam] (Tingfengzhe/Mercury/The Wind Listener), Sergio De Ieso (mafioso), Jakob Graf (Peter Rosen, CIA officer), Yuan Qiu (Jingang Tui), Liu Jiayong (Dao Shen), Luo Mang (Tie Bushan), Xie Tingting (bar owner), Zhou Xiaofei (tourist), Lin Dexin (Xin), Chen Yu’an (Li Xiao), Lê Cung, Yanin “Jeeja” Vismistananda (killers), Alberto Lancellotti (mafia boss), Daniel Gutin (CIA officer), Arthur McLarty (CIA Italian bureau head).

Release: China, 17 Aug 2018; Hong Kong, 30 Aug 2018.