Jiang Hu
As the effective head of the Chinese underworld (Jiang Hu), it appears that Hung (Andy Lau) must re-evaluate his priorities after his wife gives birth to their first child. The possibility of his abdication sets in motion a power play for the prime position of power by his sub-bosses, including his closest and most trusted lieutenant, Lefty (Jacky Cheung). Even if he doesn’t choose to abdicate, they may yet force him.
Wing (Shawn Yue) and Turbo (Edison Chen) begin a quest that will help them to rise from the mediocrity of foot soldiers in the underworld to a new levels fame. Wing must assassinate one of the bosses or die trying. To prepare for this task, his boss kindly gives Wing a cleaver and a hooker for the night.
What to think of Jiang Hu? It’s good to see that the Hong Kong gangster genre still has a faint heartbeat even if it isn’t exactly pulsating with life. Jiang Hu is perhaps continuing along the path laid out by the Infernal Affairs films. However, it’s certainly not on the level of any of the 80’s and 90’s HK triad films, and perhaps pales in comparisson with the original Infernal Affairs.
Jiang Hu had top calibre actors in it featuring Andy Lau Tak-Wah, Jacky Cheung Hok Yau and Eric Tsang Chi-Wai. It had upcoming heart throb Edison Chen Koon Hei in it. These were enough to make the film a crowd puller. The producers could have stopped there since these names alone would have made the film a crowd puller in itself. It appears that they did.
The storyline offers nothing new which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if executed in an suitably emotive way. But Jiang Hu fails to even provide that right framework through which we actually give a damn about any of the characters. Sure the film is clever temporally to provide depth to the characters, but constant flitting around diminishes from the story at hand and building a real bond between the audience and the protoganists. Stay in the present, and tell the main story. Sprinkling a few poignant memories in that accentuate the brotherhood and betrayal in question in the present rather than ladening it with what is essentially another storyline, where the audience no longer cares about one or the other.
Maybe I’m missing the point since I can’t follow in Cantonese but perhaps that is the point. Somewhere in my gut I’m feeling that the heart and soul has been ripped out of this genre of movies that Hong Kong did so well. There is no emotion. The film tries to be clever in its execution of the plot but there is not engineering of emotion through the film that makes me feel I give a damn. Again, perhaps a language problem but emotions, which lie at the heart of the film experience, should be able to transcend pure language.
What I missed in Jiang Hu is the ability to identify with the characters. Infernal Affairs had a certain resonance about the main protagonist played by Tony Leung. It was about being at odds with the system while also wrestling with the concept of not ever being or having existed. The early Young & Dangerous films resonated with the audience since it gave them strength during a period of uncertainty and financial instability.
And now, as the film makers, actors, and audience gets older, we get fanciful gangster storylines that suggest that the head triad in all of Hong Kong should leave simply because he has a child. Fatherhood and questions of brotherhood. Perhaps my generation and older are getting more mature and these are the issues of our times with which we might be able to identify. But it sure as hell doesn’t make it any more interesting for a ganster flick.
For me, the film represents the gangster genre in Hong Kong adequately. Those at the top are getting stale. Hand over the reigns to a new younger generation or suffer the death of this genre.
