A compromised policeman finds himself caught between conflicting sources of authority in Leung Lok-Man’s action thriller Cold War 1994 (寒戰1994). A kind of prequel to Leung’s Cold War series, the film opens shortly after the events of the second films in 2017 with MB Lee (Tony Leung Ka-fai) being kidnapped amid a possible return to power under a new government. The events echo a case from 20 years earlier in which a prominent industrialist was kidnapped by Triads at the behest of arch kingpin Peter Choi (Daniel Wu).
The irony is the MB Lee (Terrance Lau) of 1994 finds himself in the same position as his nation as the Handover inches ever closer. Caught between the police force, colonial authorities, and Choi, MB begins to look for new ways to protect his men in the new post-Handover reality, which makes him an awkward stand-in for Hong Kong itself as something distinct from the twin colonial powers of Britain and China. Just the Handover has produced a power imbalance allowing Choi to rise, a change of leadership at the Lo Yuen Triad society has provided an excuse for Tiger to pursue “independence”, which he largely seems to have done through an ill-advised involvement with Choi.
Tiger is responsible for the kidnapping of KF Wong, the brother-in-law of the influential businessman William Poon (Tse Kwan-ho). The Poons are old an old money family who may have made their fortune doing things not so differently from Triads, but have maintained their privilege through loyalty to the British. All of the Poons have distinctively British Western names and apparently frequent visitors to Downing Street. Now times are changing, however, William Poon no longer wants to do business with the colonial authorities, while KF Wong’s Victoria Redux plan essentially attempts to maintain the conditions of the colonial era. Though he saw him as a successor, perhaps KF Wong’s kidnapping works out pretty well for Poon.
Just as Tiger and MB Lee attempt to break free from parental legacies, William’s son Simon (Wu Kang-ren) burns with resentment that KF Wong has replaced him as the heir to the Poon group while it seems that Wong also married the woman that Simon had been in love with. He then is also looking for a kind of “independence” in escaping his father’s control and taking the family business for himself. Meanwhile, others assume that kidnapping Wong was a means of destabilising the Poon’s economic empire while they attempt to shore up their power in the post-Handover society. MB wants to find Wong not only because it was his case, but as a means of reclaiming a kind of order and clearing his name after the botched operation raises questions about his loyalty.
Loyalty is a question for everyone with the implication that there may be rewards for those “loyal” to the colonial authorities even after the Handover. The film positions the UK as an antagonist then and in the present day as evidenced by a giant spy satellite trained on the island. MB Lee is pursued and constrained by Special Branch and its British investigators who later take his entire team into custody. After the Wong operation ends in failure, MB is courted by British authorities who tell him that they see him as a possible future commissioner if he agrees to remain loyal to the British and advance UK interests even after the Handover. The British actors deliver their lines with docudrama-style realism otherwise at odds with the rest of the film, but adding to a sense of historical veracity to their machinations. Despite his later actions, MB apparently refuses but uses his leverage to free his men and carve out a niche for himself at the OCTB which is, presumably, the third way he intends to pursue in limited complicity as a means of protecting the people of Hong Kong.
Back in 2017, police commissioner Lau (Aaron Kwok) and lawyer Kan (Chow Yun-fat) remain unconvinced fearing that MB’s file has been tampered with in an attempt to rewrite history while the contemporary city remains shrouded in fog. Much of the film is seemingly a set up for its sequel, but succeeds in sowing the seeds of mystery in probing the complex relationships between local elites and colonial authorities along with the shifting balances of power in the pre-Handover society while providing the impressive, high-octane action sequences the series is known for.
Trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 