Duet ming gam

His film always leave s smirk or a smile on my face. And that is enough and that is what I expected.

If I wanted a big laugh I would go for campy movie or a Japanese over the top serial, like Unburo Deka (sp). But Johnny's film are intricate character studies. And all of it's character that is.

Here I especially enjoy Lau, and his current of ex-triad associates. They are hilarious!!! The Big-Eye character, the recycle guy, the others you see at the banquet.

Sure, you get all the different message of luck vs planning, honesty vs white lies, the power(or evil need) of money ..etc. But it's not didactic, in your face. It is woven in a storey. Yeah,it's emphasized in the banking sequence with the old lady. But it worked in a dramatic way.

Denise Ho is a surprise to me. Sure I'm not in HK and don't know the scene. But she's natural and understated not to overact here at all. While Lau's character brings some energy to the whole subtle mood.

Wathched the deleted scene also. There's another storey there. Not sure if it is too extraneous but explained something. And I would say this one is more attractive a storey than the housing one. Although albeit the housing issue is more easily related to the common folks.

But overall, very enjoyable. Tightly weaved, correctly casted, handled with care.

Crime drama surrounding financial crisis's , with classic Johnnie To themes ...

------- Movie follows multiple characters (officer, bank clerk, gangster) connected to a loan shark's death . 10 million dollars are missing in the process ..

Same time officer's wife and their foster child are looking for a home in an unstable housing market.. The bank clerk is signing people up for high-risk investments that are bound to fail.. And the gangster has luck for being the bail-out service boy , sole purpose to bail other gangsters out of the trouble they cause for themselves ..

Some investigating, robberies, car break-ins, funny police arrests, rose-petal daggers, stolen money femme ...... Johnnie To elements ..

7/10

I really don't understand the low ratings for this superb film. This is one of the most brilliant films about the current state of the world as reflected in Hong Kong society I've seen, especially as an indictment against the financial markets and banks, as exemplified in the cold reptilian nature of the female banker. The non-plot is seamlessly woven, though there's a tribute to Kieslowski here, and To coaxed great performances from most of his cast. The interwoven lives are gripping in their own roller-coaster way, as fortunes ride up and down not unlike the stock market. The only disappointment for me was the ending - I did not expect that of To, but again, it could have been the nod to Kieslowski that he wrapped it up the way he did.

I'll start by stating that I'm a big fan of Johnnie To; I love his gangster stuff and his way of telling stories based on ramifications of character decisions, rather than a God of Fate who seems to propel 90% of American films. You could say that it's his trade mark and partly what makes his films so intense and realistic.

Life Without Principle doesn't break this cycle - it has great characters and believable situations, but it just doesn't all come together.

The story told via three separate characters who all intersect thanks to a bag full of money, what mainly drags it down is the scenes being too long. To tries to emphasise on how money and/or greed cause so many problems, and in the process we're dragged through 20 minutes of dull banking set inside one small room before the story switches to focus on the real story.

The next character then runs around town trying to squeeze cash from everybody... again, hitting us with a sense of repetition that will test the patience of many a viewer. Bizarrely, Mr. Sung - the excellent villain we've come to expect from a To film - is introduced right at the end and all I could wonder was, "How different would this film have been had he been in it sooner?"

And that was the problem: too much preaching and not enough entertainment.

The long-gestating Johnnie To movie 'Life Without Principle' chooses as its theme the interminable greed of mankind, set against the backdrop of the current financial crisis. Taking almost three years for the auteur to get it off the page onto the screen, it is also his most narratively complex film since 'Election', intertwining the stories of a bank employee, a cop and two triad gangsters over the course of one fateful day when the Greek economy essentially goes 'kaput'.

Unfolding quite independently of each other at first, To requests the patience of his audience as he slowly builds up each narrative thread to flesh out the key characters. First in line is bank employee Teresa (Denise Ho), who is under pressure from the team manager to meet her sales targets for a new complex financial product before the New Year. She makes cold calls from a list of bank customers, the derision she faces enough to make one think twice about being mean to the person on the other end of the line in similar real-life situations.

The focus of this segment is Teresa's persuasion of an elderly woman (So Hang-Shuen) to invest her life savings into a high-risk fund, despite the mismatch between the investment product and the client's risk appetite. The client laments about the bank's low interest rates on deposits, and Teresa sees an opportunity to be less than scrupulous- despite her nagging conscience. This is certainly a parallel between this and our very own DBS 'High Notes 5' saga not too long ago- and To mines the realities of this sequence to highlight the pitfalls many ordinary citizens often fall into when making poorly informed investment decisions.

To also uses this segment to introduce two supporting characters- the balding loan shark Yuen (Lo Hoi-Pang) who gets robbed immediately after withdrawing five million from the bank; and the soon-to-be-married Connie (Myolie Wu) frustrated at her fiancée's reluctance at buying an apartment for investment. Yuen will figure later in the second story thread led by triad runner Panther (Lau Ching Wan) and his buddy Lung (Philip Keung), who runs an illegal business operation dabbling in Internet stock trading.

Thanks to Lau's fine turn playing the exceedingly righteous Panther with just the right balance of levity and gravity, this is easily the most colourfully entertaining segment- and because of the gangster milieu also the one which To's fans will find most familiar. Using the first half to emphasise Panther's servility as he tries to post bail for a fellow triad honcho (Eddie Cheung), To's investment in character development pays off in understanding Panther's loyalty to Lung and the extent he is willing to go to help Lung out of his financial doldrums.

The third, and perhaps least developed, story concerns Inspector Cheung (Ritchie Jen), whose dedication to his work is another reason for his fiancé Connie's frustration. Though Cheung is seen earlier crossing paths with Panther, it is Cheung's heroism saving another elderly man from committing suicide and his subsequent change in perspective that this segment is concerned with- though there Is a severely undercooked subplot involving Cheung's father's death from cancer and the fate of his young half-sister. This and the other two seemingly disparate plot threads only coalesce towards the last half hour of the film- but rest assured that To rewards your patience with a riveting conclusion that connects the various characters brilliantly, albeit with some degree of deus ex machina especially towards the end.

But beyond the plotting, To's film is also extremely meaningful as a reflection of the interconnectedness of our livelihoods with the ups and downs of the world economy. Bearing great thematic relevance and prescience, the movie paints a stark picture of how the very wellbeing of ordinary and disparate folk can be affected so drastically by something happening on a different continent. It is also not afraid to expose the flaws within the growing complexities of our financial industries, which entraps the sweat-soaked dollars and cents of good hardworking people.

If the above discourse on the film's themes isn't yet clear enough, then let us also state categorically that those looking for To's trademark shoot-em-up actioners will likely be disappointed. There is nary a shootout in sight, nor a bullet fired for that matter, but To's gamble to attempt a multi-strand narrative built around pertinent social issues (think 'Traffic', 'Crash' or even this autumn's 'Contagion') pays off handsomely- thanks also to solid acting from To's usual band of regulars and some expert editing from David Richardson. As the fruit of To's labour for the past three years, it also reaffirms his position as one of the best, if not the best, directors in Hong Kong today.

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