"Goldfinger", which reunited Tony Leung and Andy Lau as two male protagonists, was once considered the mirror image of "Infernal Affairs".
■Our reporter Liu Qing
At the end of the movie "When the Wind Rises Again", the ICAC official played by Xu Guanwen denounced the British colonial system for condoning the collusion between administrative violence machines (police) and civil clan society (gangsters) to produce monsters. This The page must be turned, "What kind of spiritual legacy will Hong Kong and Hong Kong people carry with them in the future?" "Goldfinger", which has been long-awaited, can be seen as a gloomy answer to this question. Hong Kong experienced transformation in the 1970s and created an economic miracle in the 1980s, but the underlying background of its historical operations has not changed. Giants who are far more secretive and greedy than the "sheriff" and "big brother" used invisible soft violence to plunder the city. Most people's money, even their destiny. Andy Lau once again played the role of a defender of justice and order without hesitation. However, after a 15-year investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the top "white glove" who manipulated the capital market and wiped out tens of billions of market value was sentenced to three years in prison. It seems that the creator can't hide it. A sad sigh from the bottom of my heart.
Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the release of "Infernal Affairs", Tony Leung and Andy Lau reunited to reorganize the cat-and-mouse game between the two male protagonists. The roles they played were swapped. Andy Lau is an ICAC agent who faces difficulties, and Tony Leung is a member of the capital market. Hidden "Shuo Mouse", therefore, "Goldfinger" was once considered to be the mirror image of "Infernal Affairs". Sadly, "Goldfinger" did not bring a new narrative to Hong Kong movies like "Infernal Affairs" 20 years ago, and it was expected that it could not match the box office and reputation of "Infernal Affairs". Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau, who have gone through many vicissitudes of life, appear in the same frame, which only adds a touch of nostalgia to Hong Kong movies.
Strictly speaking, "Goldfinger", "When the Wind Rises Again" and "Chasing the Dragon" are the same type of movies. Writer and director Zhuang Wenqiang has similar interests as Weng Ziguang and Wang Jing. They all try to use highly typed creations to create A personal response to the history of Hong Kong and Hong Kong cinema. "Chasing the Dragon" and "When the Wind Rises Again" focus on the exit of Hong Kong's local "heroes" and stay on the eve of Hong Kong's social transformation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At the beginning of "Goldfinger", the Independent Commission Against Corruption's severe anti-corruption in the police industry triggered police protests across Hong Kong. This is the "Once Upon a Time in Hong Kong" follow-up to "Chasing the Dragon" and "When the Wind Rises Again".
Cheng Yiyan, played by Tony Leung, is a Singaporean originally from southern Fujian. After going bankrupt, he came to Hong Kong to look for opportunities. Because he can speak Hokkien, he accidentally got involved in the internal strife of a local family business in Hong Kong as a "double actor". He pretended to be a Nanyang Datuk and deceived the price of a piece of worthless land to double. Cheng Yiyan made his first pot of gold with nothing, and became a professional "speculator" from then on. He took advantage of the east wind of Hong Kong's economic boom and rose to the top. Cheng Yiyan, who used credit leverage to travel among the upper class and created tens of billions of bubbles in the Hong Kong capital market, was not a golden finger that turned stone into gold, but a white glove used by the powerful who had been invisible from beginning to end. He was involved in several lawsuits involving human lives, but he was able to He escaped unscathed time and time again, demonstrating again and again that "those who steal the hook will be punished, and those who steal the country will be the princes."
Cheng Yiyan’s real success came after the local Hong Kong family business he was attached to moved to North America and he registered as a small and micro enterprise to start his own business. Although this is a reference to real-life character prototypes, Zhuang Wenqiang's strokes in the play are profound: the deep ties between clan communities and business are lifted, human society, black and white grievances and grievances are faded away, and the legal system and The rule of law can still be played by a few, in new ways. The "pre-modern" Hong Kong past has an ambiguous background, that is, unmonitored power and clan society making peace. Neither "When the Wind Rises" nor "Chasing the Dragon" truly revolutionized the endless "hero is a super hero" in the history of Hong Kong films. "Hero" genre films, the directors did not break through the framework of Jianghu grievances, but the film can still concretely reproduce the behavioral traces of some specific groups of people in an era. In contrast, Zhuang Wenqiang took a step forward. The undertone of "Goldfinger" is darker. It touches on the deep emptiness after Hong Kong has achieved "modern transformation", and the ups and downs of the powerful are realized in a more secretive way.
As the folk saying goes, "The poor's money is money, and the rich's money is numbers." The crimes unfolded in "Goldfinger" revolve around the flow of invisible money and the invisible evils within capital. This is a great challenge for Chong Man-keung's writing and filming, especially after Hollywood comedies such as "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "The Big Short" that criticized the capital market, how can Hong Kong creators combine local history to create new narratives and The new images are highly anticipated. But now it seems that the final film "Goldfinger" may not be able to meet everyone's expectations for it that have lasted for several years.
The film unfolds two timelines that are constantly interrupted. The bright line is that Liu Qiyuan, played by Andy Lau, spent 15 years tracking down the evidence of Cheng Yiyan’s financial crimes. The past tense of the interlude is a collage of Cheng Yiyan’s career as a “golden belt of murderers and arsonists”. The two-way control of money and people, the two-way flow of money and power, is the dark heart of this story. The timeline that is cut into pieces by the interpolation also cuts off this darkest core. The film's scenes constantly switch between the narrative reality and the fragments of memories, which shows that the director's creative direction is also hesitant: he is trying to clarify this old case and reveal the greed flowing in the prosperous body of "modern Hong Kong" in the 1980s. He was suffering from sepsis, but he couldn't stop lingering on the mountains and sea of Hung Hom Bay; in the movie, the "Golden Mountain Building" is a concrete symbol of unchecked desire, but the image of this building and Hong Kong's undulating concrete forest skyline melting into the sunset, It exposed the director's deep nostalgia. He was angry about the truth and reality, but he couldn't help but miss that era.
Even the actors have become part of the nostalgia. Not surprisingly, both Tony Leung and Andy Lau received habitual praise from the audience. Once again, Tony Leung Chiu-wai performed as a "role actor without traces". On and off the screen, on and off the screen, he is a person who can easily move between reality and performance. Andy Lau is still a man who wears a mask without cracks to defend order. When the gray-haired man confronts Tony Leung Chiu-wai and makes a calm speech, this image overlaps with his emphasis on "the rule of law and the rule of law" as the security chief in the movie "Cold War" 10 years ago. and security are the core values of Hong Kong, China." No matter Tony Leung or Andy Lau, they have once again picked up the mask that they are best at and most experienced, so that when they appear in the same shot, the scene is not necessarily filled with the tension of the scene, but a condensed version of the past of Hong Kong movies. two powerful symbols.
Source: Wen Wei Po
