Tag: Chan Chun-Fung

I Did It My Way (潛行, Jason Kwan, 2023)

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“Oldies are still the best,” one bad guy tells another while listening to a retro pop song about the inability to distinguish good from evil, “life was simpler back then.” Jason Kwon’s I Did it My Way (潛行) is in many ways an attempt to recapture the action classics of the 90s starring many of the same A-listers though they are all 30 years older and in some cases really ageing out of the kinds of roles they’re accustomed to playing in these kinds of films. Nevertheless, the action is updated for the contemporary era in its unsubtle messaging that drugs and cyber crime are bad, while the police are definitely good and will always win.

Indeed, barrister George Lam (Andy Lau Tak-wah) is not a particularly sympathetic villain and is given little justification for his crimes save doing things his way. Cybercrime specialist Eddie Fong (Edward Peng Yu-Yan) isn’t terribly sympathetic either, but mostly because of his bullheaded earnestness. Chung Kam-ming (Simon Yam Tat-wah) asks him to work with regular narcotics cop Yuen (Lam Suet), but Eddie originally refuses, insisting that they formed their new cybercrimes squad because the “old ways” weren’t working, so it’s better that they keep their investigations separate, which is of course quite rude to Yuen especially as he goes on to add that Chung’s only asked him out of politeness and professional deference. Chung, however, reminds them that they’re all part of one big family and should learn to work together. 

One might think that a criminal enterprise is also a kind of family, but it’s shown to be illegitimate in comparison to that of the police. Yuen’s undercover agent, Sau Ho (Gordon Lam Ka-tung), has a family he’s trying to protect, as does Lam who is about to marry his much younger pregnant girlfriend. For them, family is also a weakness because it gives them a reason to be afraid not to mention something to lose. Beginning to suspect him, Lam uses Sau Ho’s wife and son as leverage, symbolically taking them hostage along with Sau Ho’s promised future that would allow him to emigrate for a life of freedom under a new identity. 

Like the song says, Sau Ho is also struggling to define his identity as an undercover cop caught between his original desire to fight crime and the criminal lifestyle he’s been forced to live which leaves him never quite sure what side he’s actually on. Lam claims he only started dealing drugs after his girlfriend was raped and subsequently developed depression but that’s too late for him to turn back and so he’s gone all in. There is a kind of brotherhood that arises between them that’s permanently strained by their positioning on either side of this line and the inevitability of confrontation. Fong promises to save Sau Ho, but he failed to save most of their other undercover officers, while Sau Ho and Lam pledge to save each other, though the act of salvation could mean different things to each of them while both torn between their respective codes and the natural connection that’s been fostered by their long years working together as part of the gang. 

The severing of this connection is again part of the price for their involvement with crime, with Lam led to believe that his choices have ironically robbed him of the pleasant familial future he dreamed of, while Sau Ho is returned to the familial embrace of the police force. Chung is repositioned as a benevolent father who can save his men, while Eddie too is forced to reintegrate by working with the other officers to fight cybercrimes which often intersect with those of other divisions. While the film includes several action sequences, it also insists that the major battle takes place online between hackers and police computer specialists, dramatising these online fights with CGI to slightly better effect than 2023’s Cyber Heist but still struggling to move on from an outdated iconography of the web. Even so, it’s clear that crime never pays even if a policewoman asks herself if it’s really worth it on a trip to the police cemetery. The sun has come out once again, making the dividing line between good and evil clear if also reinforcing the paternalistic authority of law enforcement under which living life “my way” will never be tolerated.

I Did It My Way is available digitally in the US courtesy of Well Go USA.

Trailer (English subtitles)

Cyber Heist (斷網, Wong Hing-fan, 2023)

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A cyber security expert is forced on the run after being framed for money laundering while trying to engineer a brighter future for his seriously ill little girl in Wong Hing-fan’s high octane techno thriller, Cyber Heist (斷網). In true B-movie fashion, the film’s visualisation of the digital world has a distinctly retro aesthetic while the plot may sometimes lack internal consistency, but what the film does have is a series of tense action sequences many featuring the hero desperately running around carrying the super secret information in a tiny robot doll. 

Chun (Aaron Kwok Fu-shing) is cyber security expert working for a top Hong Kong firm which provides technical services for local banks. The problem is that they keep getting hacked as criminal gangs take down banking services to run a complex money laundering operation. As it turns out, Chun was once a cyber criminal who spent time in prison for selling viruses on the dark web but has since reformed after becoming a father. His little girl, Bowie, is suffering from a serious heart condition and is currently on the transplant list but dreams of one day becoming an astronaut. 

It’s Bowie who provides the moral centre of the film in her constant refrain of “What are you doing, Daddy?” which Chun seems to hear every time he’s thinking of doing something nefarious. Clearly possessed of immense power in his technical knowhow Chun battles with himself as to how to use it responsibily. When Bowie is turned down for a place at an elite school, he considers simply hacking into their database and changing her records but thinks better of it before getting her a place the old fashioned way, by agreeing to make a sizeable “donation”. It doesn’t really seem like that’s a lot better in the grand scheme of things but does perhaps hint at the low level of corruption that has already seeped into everyday life. In any case, it’s Chun’s desperation for the money after being turned down for a loan by his boss, Chan (Gordon Lam Ka-tung ), that makes him vulnerable to intrigue when previous patsy Frankie (Kenny Wong Tak-bun) is killed in a mysterious “accident” after laundering more money than he was supposed to and then depositing the excess in his regular bank account.

Chun agrees to help the authorities in the form of cyber crimes inspector Suen Ban (Simon Yam Tat-wah) but soon finds himself on the run when ultra corrupt boss Chan kidnaps his daughter. Chan is also trying to protect his younger brother who was left with brain damage after being beaten by thugs working for shady gangster Mr Pong (Andy Kwong Ting-Wo) and is clearly not above reprehensible behaviour. It has to be said that the film’s conception of the way online infrastructure works has a distinctly B-movie quality. At one point, Chun’s experimental AI virus ends up accidentally destroying the entirety of the internet yet nothing really happens except for people becoming very confused by their now useless phones, and then Chun is somehow able to make everything OK again by simply rebooting it. 

Likewise, the film’s visualisation of the cyber world is heavily influenced by mid-90s William Gibson as a kind of virtual reality metaverse where hackers walk around in cyberspace while wearing creepy clear plastic masks. The space occupied by the money launderers is verdant and green, a beautiful cyber forest, while that of the dark web is pure grunge, a space of urban decay filled with dank and half finished buildings and peopled by edgy guys in hoodies wearing hacker chic. Even so, there’s a kind of charm in the retro aesthetics of ‘90s futurism along with the concurrent suggestion that the offline world is inescapably duplicitous and true techno guys are the only ones to be trusted. 

In any case, the money laundering scam is a kind of MacGuffin as Chun becomes increasingly irate while squaring off against his opposite number, Chan, and trying to prove himself as a responsible husband and father by saving his little girl and catching the bad guy not to mention clearing his name by helping the police. An old-fashioned man on the run thriller, Wong’s breathless camerawork follows Chun all over Hong Kong as he fights for his life and family against those who value nothing more than money while desperately trying to live up to his daughter’s expectations of what a good man should be in a world that online or off is already far from fair. 

Cyber Heist was released in UK cinemas courtesy of Magnum Films.

Original trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)