Triangle

A notable collaboration between three of the most iconic directors in Hong Kong, Triangle is a complex crime film from which one should expect the unexpected.

This is a not a Pulp Fiction (1994) or Three Extremes (2004) style anthology, but instead a single, linear story in which the baton is passed from one director to the next, a bit like The Signal (2007).

Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and current favourite Johnnie To each used their own scripts and production teams to create 30 minutes of this crime drama.

Tsui Hark's first act establishes the characters, handing over to Ringo Lam for an intense second act and it's therefore down to Johnnie To to wrap things up in the chaotic final act. These are directors who know how to use conventions, such as the mcguffin, the chase and gunfight, but delight in adding unexpected twists to subvert our expectations.

The result is a surprisingly natural film experience. Distinctive styles, such as Tsui Hark's intense visuals, may make the audience aware of who is in control but generally it's almost impossible to determine which director's work we are watching at any given time. Cinematographer Cheng Siu-Keung deserves credit for maintaining a beautifully atmospheric tone throughout, even during the many unusual moments.

As is appropriate for a film with three directors there are three lead characters. Simon Yam, Louis Koo and Sun Honglei play desperate men planning a robbery when a mystery man approaches leaves in their possession a piece of gold which sends them in a new direction, toward buried treasure.

It's the set-up for a conventional heist movie, the kind of film we have seen many times before, but in the hands of these skilled artists it becomes much more. The triangle of the title can be interpreted to mean one or several things. Meaning extends beyond simply referring to the collaboration between the trio of filmmakers.

It can be said to refer to the three-stages to this story and the journey the audience accompanies the characters on. The poster art presents the words "destiny" "jealousy" and "temptation" on each side of the shape, hinting at a philosophical construction. Triangle is an ambiguous film from which we can take from what we wish.

I was personally drawn to the "love triangle" interpretation. At the heart of the film is a woman, the wife of one of the criminals, who has been having an affair. For a notable three years. Awareness of the betrayal has a direct influence on the direction of the story and things become increasingly unpredictable. I'm being intentionally vague about whose wife she is and with whom the affair is taking place as there are so many wonderful nuances and surprises in the narrative that it would be a shame to spoil them.

Simon Yam, a serious actor with a surprising number of action films in his filmography including Wake of Death with Jean-Claude Van Damme, is a Johnnie To regular and it's his cold, emotionless performance which grips the audience most. From the moment he is introduced on screen we never know what to expect from him.

Louis Koo (with whom Yam and To worked on the Election films) is also good as a small-time criminal getting in over his head with some nasty characters. The only weak link is Sun Hong Lei as an antique store owner who aids them in their heist. Too often off-screen and unmemorable when he is on it.

Triangle is an intriguing piece of work. Those seeking a fast-paced thriller would be advised to look elsewhere, but if you enjoy slow- burning character studies then this will not disappoint.

With all the negative reviews and opinions I had read about Triangle before watching the film, I expected to be disappointed. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised.

Triangle is by no means a masterpiece that lives up to any of the three directors' names, but it is certainly not the incoherent mess some people make it out to be. Tsui's first third establishes too many subplots, but I thought that even in Lam's third, I was able to follow everything. Sun Honglei really shines in the film, and it would be great seeing him in other Milkyway films. But what's most important is that despite the slightly confusing plot, Triangle always remains an entertaining movie - from the great car chases in Lam's segment to the typical Johnnie To shootouts in the final third, it always kept me on the edge of my seat. Great music has become a staple in Milkyway productions since the last few years, but Zerafa's score here shows strokes of brilliance, adding to the mythical tone established by Tsui in the first third. And that piece playing in the credits is beautiful!

I also really liked the ending, which in a way comments on the theme of "fate" which I thought was illustrated pretty well throughout the movie.

Sure, you perhaps need to be a huge, huge fan of at least one of the directors present here (To's style seems to be prevalent, even in the segments not directed by him) to appreciate this film, but I thought it was pretty great. Maybe people just need to be a bit more open-minded and not expect a masterpiece from three legendary directors who are just having a bit of fun - and contrary to what others said, I felt I was able to participate in that fun.

The much awaited Hong Kong movie Triangle has finally hit our shores. It's an interesting project, given that 3 HK directors - Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To - are combining forces to tell a story in the "exquisite corpse" style, where each one takes over from where the other left off, each injecting their own narrative style and spin to the characters and story. It's friendly one-upmanship between the directors in their bout to demonstrate their innovativeness, spontaneity and resourcefulness, but what comes through is clearly a mixed bag, expectedly so since you have three distinct creative inputs.

Does it come across as confusing? You bet, at least for the first third when Tsui creates the characters and the premise. I thought Tsui had tried to bite off more than he can chew. Then again, being the one off the starting blocks, he might be trying to provide as many possibilities and directions that the narrative can choose to adopt and examine in depth or drop altogether. And he doesn't get involved in the chewing anyway, as that's left to Ringo Lam to digest, and Johnnie To to wrap up. Tsui creates a trio who are hard pressed for cash. In Mok's (Chinese actor Sun Hong Lei) antique shop, Fai (Louis Koo) proposes to Sam (Simon Yam) about a heist, which requires them to utilize the latter's driving skills. A stranger appears and provides them an ancient coin, and a puzzle on a website which directs them to treasure (which includes lingerie!) underneath a government legislative building.

Simple enough? Yes, until we also get thrown many other subplots, some of which involves the original heist gone awry because of Sam's backing out, Sam's wife Ling (Kelly Lin) having an affair with corrupt cop Wen (Lam Ka Tung), Fai being under Wen's payroll and their plot within a plot in the original heist to bump Sam off, so that the adulterous couple can lead a new life, gangland members screwball involvement in the whole scheme of things, and the list goes on. Ideas get thrown into the mix and tossed about, and you can almost hear Tsui's cheeky snickering at how Lam and To will be able to sieve through the mess.

But fret not, I believe Lam had managed to, given that he closed most of the open threads and decided quite cleverly, to focus on the individual motivations involving a love "Triangle", and examined some of the characters in depth. This created a much needed and deserved pause for your brain to filter through the noise Tsui had caused, and made the narrative henceforth more manageable, and it did have some rather creative scenes of violence. Fans of Ringo Lam will have known of his earlier movie City On Fire, which Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs was widely acknowledged to be inspired from. And in Lam's third of the movie, he provides a throwback to Reservoir Dogs, coming full circle with a scene within a warehouse, a character in bondage, everyone else coming over for their piece of the action, with music played over a turntable.

So what's left of Johnnie To to do? He cleared the mess, literally. I thought he provided the best possible last arc for what had transpired over the last hour, with shades from the Election movie (the hunt for an artifact) and a very, very complicated setup to Exiled styled Mexican stand-offs, together with themes of brotherhood, loyalty and honour all summed up beautifully. And I thought he just had to throw in Lam Suet for comedic purposes to provide one last, but short, complication to up the ante that he too can make things complex! To does what To does best, and by the time the credits roll, you'll be pondering over what had transpired, and no doubt, I believe the talking point will be its ending.

All in all, Triangle proved to be an enjoyable ride. Just endure the messy start to get to the meat, before lasting the final sprint to the finishing line where you'll get that rewarding yarn. I'm not sure if the three directors will collaborate again, maybe they should, but this time to rearrange the order for a different film, and if they're at it, why not make it a trilogy to complete the loop so that everyone has a chance to begin, sustain, and close.

If a movie can't hold your interest in the first 25 minutes, it's over as far as I'm concerned. This concept that you have to simply deal with a slow first third of a movie and be rewarded later is nonsense. A good movie has to start and end strong. It all seem interesting and some decent shots and lots of promise, but ultimately muddled and irrelevant. There are so many other movies from Asia to watch, many of which I am sure most of you have not seen, that I would really skip this one and look elsewhere. Why exactly does IMDb require a 10 line minimum for reviews? I said my piece and I hope this helps a few of you move on to the next film.

A novel idea, originating in Tsui Hark I believe, to make a film based on the old game of incremental story-telling, passing the baton between 3 of Hong Kong's (once) top directors (they should have swapped Johnnie To for John Woo and called it "The Victims of Jean-Claude Van-Damme Rehabilitation Project"). The result is, sadly, almost as incoherent as a nay-sayer might expect it to be.

The first third of the film (Tsui) is kind of scatter-shot, throwing ideas out there for the other directors to pick up on, centred around a heist movie setup with 3 main protagonists (Simon Yam, Louis Koo and Sun Hong-Lei) - setting up a triangle that clearly hints where he really wants the movie to go. This section does suffer from that amphetamine-high lack of focus that sometimes afflicts Tsui Hark when he has too many ideas for a movie, and can't decide which ones are really important.

Ringo Lam takes over just before 30 minutes in, and the mood shifts - he evidently wants to create a psychological horror instead of a crime movie, and shifts the focus more to the characters played by Kelly Lin and Gordon Lam. This part is eerie and oblique, a little surreal at times but much more focused.

Then Johnnie To comes in for the final act, and decides that the film should really be... a farce! Perhaps it's his way of commenting on the baby he has been left holding. Every character that's been introduced so far is brought back into play, along with a couple of new ones (notably Lam Suet), and the plot plays itself out in an elaborate comedy of errors hinged upon a series of entirely implausible coincidences. The finale is a gun battle vaguely reminiscent of those in THE MISSION or EXODUS, but with a more comical coating. It's a bit Shakespearean, but falls short of The Bard's wit.

The shifting of tones, and the diverting focus of the narrative, is exactly the sort of problem you'd expect a movie with three directors and three script-writing teams to have. Perhaps that was the point, and each director deliberately took the movie into their own favourite territory when they took the reins. I guess that's how it usually happens when people play the game amongst themselves (I forget the name of it, never really saw the appeal), but they perhaps failed to factor in that the game is more fun for the people playing it than for somebody who simply gets handed the end result. The production process may be interesting to talk or think about, but probably makes for a less enjoyable film than a more conventional collaboration would have.

I did enjoy Ringo Lam's section though - hopefully it's a sign he's going to be doing more work in Hong Kong again!