NYAFF ’18: The Big Call

Lin A-hai’s gang doesn’t merely steal from the most vulnerable. They do so at the most annoying times. His motley crew of phone and internet scammers operates out of Thailand, using Chinese nationals lured using bait-and-switch tactics. They are a slippery bunch, but an upright HK cop and his undercover ex-girlfriend are determined to bring them down in Oxide Pang’s The Big Call (trailer here), which screens during the 2018 New York Asian Film Festival.

Lin is the brains of the outfit, but since the cops have nothing on him (despite the best efforts of driven Ding Xiaotian), he can strut around Hong Kong at his leisure. His girlfriend Liu Lifeng is the operational manager, overseeing the women (primarily) forced to work in their Bangkok boiler room. Xu Xiaotu has infiltrated the operation, having been vouchsafed by a recruiter the electronic bunco squad busted. Liu can’t make up her mind whether she suspects Xu is a plant, but she respects her toughness and even seems to enjoy hang time with her. Meanwhile, an even more ruthless rival from Taiwan threatens to move in on their operation.

With Big Call Oxide Pang proves you can make a slam-bang action movie about telephone scamming. Perhaps this means somebody lost a bet—possibly to his filmmaker brother Danny Pang. Regardless, he pulled it off and as an additional coup he scored Gwei Lun-mei’s virtuoso performance as a straight-up unambiguous-right-from-the-start villain as the ruthless but tragically co-dependent Liu.

Wow, as much as we adore Gwei, even we didn’t know she could express such ferocity. Yet, we still end up feeling for her deeply. Jiang Mengjie is simultaneously strong and sensitive as undercover Xu, while Peng Xinchen is downright heartrending as Lin’s estranged sister Xiaoqin. In comparison, Cheney Chen’s Ding is rather a righteous bore, but at least he has more stamina than T.J. Hooker running after cars and jumping down fire escapes and the like. However, Joseph Chang Hsiao-chuan’s Lin is so cold and calculating, he really makes him spectacularly detestable.

Whether working solo or with his brother, Pang has always had a knack for staging slick action sequences. Big Call is no exception, but the real heat comes in the hothouse boiler room intrigue. Pang cranks up the claustrophobia and then lets Gwei and Jiang power the film with their intensity. It is like an old school HK cop movie, but with distinctly 21^st Century criminals (in fact, the thumb nail sketch Pang and co-screenwriter Liu Hua provide of Lin’s multi-tentacled operation is rather illuminating). Highly recommended for action connoisseurs and fans of Gwei, The Big Call screens July 4^th at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

SFFS Hong Kong Cinema ’13: The Conspirators

They say lawyers who represent themselves have fools for clients.  Evidently, the same holds true for private detectives.  This is especially true of Chan Tam, the so-called “C+ Detective,” who has never inspired much confidence with his sleuthing skills.  He will enlist a local gumshoe in Malaysia for a highly personal case in Oxide Pang’s The Conspirators (a.k.a. The Detective 3, trailer here), which screens during the San Francisco Film Society’s annual Hong Kong Cinema film series.

As the dubious hero of Pang’s Detective franchise, Tam has considerable history as a character, but the only backstory viewers need to know Pang establishes in about five seconds.  The C+ Detective’s parents were murdered by the drug cartel they may have once worked for in some capacity, so Tam has come for revenge.  Since Thailand is his base of operations, he has retained the services of Zheng Fong-hei, a skilled but asthmatic martial artist, who is considerably better at his job than Zheng.

As soon as Zheng starts helping Tam track down persons of interest, dead bodies start popping up. It is dangerous to be an old friend of the family like the mysterious Chai.  Before long, both detectives are marked for murder.  However, the soon-to-be late Chai’s daughter might know where to find the MacGuffin Tam lost before he even knew he had it.

Pang is not Johnnie To, but he can still stage an effective action scene, capitalizing on one-time Royal Hong Kong police officer Nick Cheung’s chops.  In fact, Conspirators has a murky, morally ambiguous atmosphere that is quite evocative of 1970’s genre films.  It is also rather entertaining to see watch Cheung’s Zheng and Kwok’s Tam engage in a battle of hardnosed seething.  Cheung takes the honors, but Kwok hangs with him, revisiting what has become his signature character of the last decade or so.  Shaw Brother alumnus Chen Kuan Tai and Bullet Vanishes standout Jiang Yiyan also add further noir heft to the supporting ensemble.

The crime story mechanics of Pang’s screenplay, co-written with his brother Thomas and Ng Mang-cheung, are all rather workaday, but the execution on screen is quite strong. Old pros Cheung and Kwok deliver the goods as the action co-leads, while Pang drenches everything with pseudo-John Woo visual style.  The results are highly entertaining.  Recommended for fans of dark revenge thrillers, The Conspirators screens this coming Sunday (10/6) as part of the SFFS’s eagerly awaited Hong Kong Cinema series.