Three of Hong Kong’s most respected directors – Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To – each take one half-hour segment of the same plotline, each with complete creative control – but is it any more than an self-indulgent experiment?
The concept of Hong Kong directors collaborating on the same movie is by no means new. Actually it’s always been more likely to happen there than anywhere else in the world, no doubt brought on partly by necessity of the high turnover in years gone by. Johnnie To, for instance, has a long-standing collaborative relationship with writer/director Wong Ka-Fai (of which their latest, Mad Detective, has recently been released in the UK).
Commonly directors would team up to quickly produce a ‘benefit’ film, such as Just Heroes, directed by John Woo and Wu Ma to raise money for Zhang Che. It’s also no secret that when a scene is handed over to an action director, then they really do take over the movie.
Then there’s the uncredited work, such as the disastrous Tsui Hark production of Swordsman – meant as a return for maestro director King Hu, Ann Hui, Ching Siu-tung, Andrew Kam and Hark himself took over when Hu didn’t deliver the sort of film Hark was looking for.
It’s just no one’s ever played ‘tag team’ with the same plot and characters before… (In fact I don’t think anyone’s truly attempted it anywhere in the world?)
Triangle tells the tale of three friends, Sam (Simon Yam, Full Contact, Election), Fai (Louis Koo, Flash Point, Election 2) and Mok (Sun Honglei, Zhou Yu’s Train, Seven Swords), each in dire financial straits they have been forced into committing a heist for local gangsters to get their hands on some much needed cash. That’s until a mysterious old man appears in their local bar offering a far more attractive scheme, an ancient and priceless treasure buried beneath a high-security government building. All they have to in sneak in and get it!
Of course, this new scheme attracts the attention of gangsters, but that’s the least of their worries. Sam’s wife Ling (Kelly Lin, Mad Detective, Zu Warriors) is conducting an illicit affair with corrupt cop Wen (Lam Ka Tung, Mad Detective, Infernal Affairs), and plans to convince him to kill her husband. Things aren’t going to be that easy then…
In many senses Triangle returns directors Hark, To and Lam to their roots as young directors at Hong Kong’s TVB television station some 30 years ago – where they all first met and became friends – creating what is effectively a ‘serial’. Each director takes a 30-minute segment of the story, picking up where the last left off, and takes complete creative control with his own team of writers. The result is a film that never plays out as you’d expect it to, as each director deliberately avoids clichés and playfully sets up situations and predicaments for the next to resolve.
But is it any good? The short answer is yes. It’s not just a gimmick; it’s very nearly a complete success. Sharing the same cinematographer, Cheng Siu-keung throughout keeps a consistent look to the film, though it’s fun to see how much the director can influence the tone and style of each segment. Hark and Lam’s sections work well together, as Hark sets up the story and Lam leads to a dark, tense confrontation between the characters.
Strangely it’s To, perhaps the best known and most respected of the trio right now, who disappoints with his section – mainly because the tone jars so greatly with the previous sections. Ditching the dark, serious mood Lam and Hark have built up, To soon turns the antics of our group of friends into a farce – where guns and knives have been used gravely, now they become comic.
Strong, solid performances from the three leads keep the characters consistent and believable. There’s strong support from Kelly Lin and Lum Ka Tung, once again playing a crooked cop (!), and a hilarious turn from Lam Suet as a pill popping tire wrecker playing incomprehensible techno from an old ghettoblaster.
Triangle is a solid thriller and more proof that Hong Kong filmmaking has found its feet again.
Triangle is released by Manga in the UK and open at the ICA Cinema, London on Friday 29 August.
