Straits Times Review: WILD CITY (NC16) – Action trumps coherence1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteDirector Ringo Lam paints Hong Kong as a society where money talks.
The story: Bar owner and ex-cop T-Man (Louis Koo) stops drunk customer Siu Yuen (Tong Liya) from driving one night but that act of kindness spirals into violence for both when crooked lawyer George (Tse Tin Wah) deploys his thugs against them to retrieve a case of dirty money. Man’s hot-headed taxi driver stepbrother Chung (Shawn Yue) wants to do the right thing, but is distracted by the money in the briefcase.
The opening shot is of a Hong Kong currency note and images of the homeless and the poverty-stricken. The closing scene involves a gun accidentally shooting off a chunk of the blindfolded Lady Justice atop a courthouse.
This is Hong Kong writer- director Ringo Lam at his heavy- handed best, or worst, depending on how you look at it. This movie marks his return to the crime thriller genre, a field he dominated some years ago with City On Fire (1987) and Full Alert (1997).
If Hong Kong is as wild as the title and the action in this movie suggest, it is because of the toxic nature of money, here literally embodied in a cash-stuffed briefcase at the centre of a struggle among the people on the run, namely T-Man, Siu Yeun and stepbrother Chung on one side, and the villains on the other.
Read the full review here>> via The Straits Times
Image Credit: mm2 Entertainment
