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Review
by Kozo: |
It's more undercover action and angst courtesy of
Marco Mak and Wong Jing, who've turned out some semi-decent
crime/cop thrillers in the last couple of years. Wo
Hu (AKA: Operation Undercover) is the latest
from the duo, and it owes an immediate debt to the
seminal Infernal Affairs. Besides the obvious
casting nods (Eric Tsang, Francis Ng, Shawn Yue), Wo
Hu references the film explicitly. When looking
for fresh undercover recruits, one cop character suggests
that they hire Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, and the film's
prologue ends with a mass of potential undercovers
leaving the police academy like Shawn Yue in the original
IA. The premise here is that the cops aren't
sending in just one undercover cop, they're sending
in a whole army to take down the triads. Dubbed "Wo
Hu", the operation involves cooperation between
the cops and the massive amount of undercover agents,
supposedly numbering between 500 to 1000 people. That's
a pretty large number.
Naturally, the triads
get wind of this undercover activity, and soon react.
Respected triad boss Jim (Eric Tsang) singles out
Eric (Timmy Hung) as an undercover, and sends a low-level
triad (Shawn Yue) to assassinate him. The triad (aptly
called "Killer" in the subtitles) carries
out the hit, but is unsuccessful at fleeing Hong Kong,
meaning he may come back to haunt Jim one day. Meanwhile,
the other triad bosses, including genial Walter (Francis
Ng) and hot-headed Tommy (Julian Cheung), are ordered
to maintain a low profile to keep the cops off them.
That's a tall order, because there are rivalries between
various parties, some which grow to murderous proportions.
The glowering Tommy is pissed because he thinks his
triad brothers are using the increased pressure from
the cops to take his assets from him. The first victim
of an undercover sting, Tommy must flee, and leaves
his businesses to Jim. However, he doesn't trust Jim's
nice guy act, and begins to plot against him. Meanwhile,
lead cop Wai (Miu Kiu-Wai) oversees everything behind
a cool pair of designer shades. Somewhere in all of
this there's supposed to be a movie.
Well, there is a movie
in all of this, but it's not the heavy crime film
that the cast and genre may lead us to believe. Though
there are supposed to be 500+ undercover agents out
there, the film contains few indentifiable ones. Other
than Timmy Hung's undercover, who gets dispatched
early in the film, we only meet two other undercover
officers, and one of them isn't really on the job
anymore. Officer Wai was once an undercover, but he
may have participated in some shady stuff while posing
as a triad, adding some shades of gray to his role
as the officer in charge of "Wo Hu". The
fiilm's main focus is how the triads are dealing with
the supposed surge in undercover activity, as they
try to take advantage of each others losses while
holding onto their own territories and assets. Still,
while there's some tension in the two-faced dealings,
it's not exceptionally potent. The film concerns itself
with an abundance of subplots, not all of them crime-related,
which sucks some energy from the narrative. Sometimes
the overarcing "Wo Hu" plotline seems more
perfunctory than crucial; when Wai finally calls in
all his markers for the grand finale of "Wo Hu",
it's just a quick montage of a bunch of people being
dragged in. A riveting thriller, Wo Hu is not.
What it is, however,
is pretty entertaining. The film lacks much momentum,
and even seems to meander, but there's involving and
even fun stuff in the film's shifting focus. Some
of the triad issues are played to comic effect, such
as when Walter gets his assets frozen, his own triad
followers try to escape paying his dinner bills. Likewise,
triad boss Fei (Jordan Chan) is comically henpecked
by his wife, and sometimes does his job in a hilariously
poor manner. Fei is in charge of recruitment, but
it's not very threatening when he recruits old men
or guys who can't stop laughing to show up at tense
restaurant-set standoffs. Wo Hu possesses an
interesting take on the triad life, presenting triad
members less like caricatures and more like regular
guys. Jim is righteous and caring to a fault, and
Walter spends a lot of time worrying about his violinist
son, who, in an amusing bit of casting, is
played by the same young actor who essayed Simon Yam's
scarred son in the Election movies. Even the
cartoonishly intense Tommy has a soft spot for his
ailing mother.
This attention to ironic
detail and human themes is what makes Wo Hu
a surprising triad flick, though there are some details
that seem suspiciously manufactured. Eric Tsang gets
an odd romance with former Miss HK Sonja Kwok, who
plays a perky window dresser that apparently comes
from fantasy land. Her character is hard to buy because
she's single, enormously pretty, adorably quirky,
and actually finds Eric Tsang attractive. Still, despite
the cheesy unbelievability of such a pairing, the
actors make it work, and the romance does have some
thematic payoff. One of the major concerns of Wo
Hu is the good/bad dichotomy between cops and
triads. Wai is supposed to be good, but he did some
bad stuff while undercover, while both Jim and Walter
are surprisingly decent guys beneath their triad titles.
It helps that Jim and Walter are played by Eric Tsang
and Francis Ng, both of whom bring humanity and heart
to their characters. The two actors anchor the film
with their sympathetic performances, but the rest
of the cast helps too. Wo Hu is loaded with
recognizable actors, most of whom bring instant presence
to even the most minor characters.
There are a few
more problems with the film. Some the script's drama
is obvious and overdrawn, and Marco Mak's stylish
direction occasionally crosses the line into laughably
melodramatic. However, Mak also stages some startlingly
dramatic sequences, including one brutal beating that
gets its point across powerfully. Still, despite the
flashes of violence, it's the quieter moments that
manage to stick with the audience. At one point, Jim
and Walter sit around and muse if they're really good
guys, and the moment underlines what's enjoyable about
Wo Hu. Even though they're supposed to be "bad"
guys, the two men are really quite likable, such that
it's easy to care for them when they finally meet
their fates. Wo Hu's uneven direction and wandering
focus prevent it from being rated as truly exceptional,
but it's a clever and entertaining film worthy of
the Hong Kong Cinema label. Wong Jing, we owe you
an apology. (Kozo 2006)
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