Báng-kah

The world of cinema has had a long and fruitful love affair with the underworld. From crudely un-sleek Tony Montana to Kitano's too cool for school gangsters, our fondness for these rebels who live on the outer ring of rules-following society stem from our own yearning to break free of authoritative constraints. In 'Monga', directed by actor/director Doze Niu, a young man named 'Mosquito' falls in with the wrong company and like us, is drawn into a love affair with all things explicitly illegal. Set in the 80's, there's a feeling of gleeful reminiscence when watching this. Violence and back-stabbings occur like bees drawn to honey-pregnant flowers as with all secret societies but it is all done with such a sentimentalized, romanticized gloss that it came across as refreshing as a glass of lemonade on a scorching day. We feel special mention should be given to Ethan Yuan. He plays 'Monk' with such conviction and heartbreaking vulnerability we felt he anchored the whole movie with his presence. Similarly, its impressive cinematography and direction gets a shout-out too.

Monga is set in the 1980s, and it's a tale of two halves, the first of which is strikingly similar to The Days, being in a school setting, and setting the scene with the recruitment of a newbie into the ranks of a group of street punks, who call themselves The Prince Gang. Narrated by main protagonist nicknamed Mosquito (Mark Chao), a teenager with no friends and often a target for bullies, he soon finds the enticement of belonging to a group who swears loyalty amongst their ranks, giving him a shot into the dark side through an initiation rite that involves roughing up one's enemy. Typical modus operandi employed to get a newbie down the slippery slope of gangsterism, where first you win his impression, respect and loyalty, then he fights for all his brothers.

But of course the Prince Gang is more than just a start up racket, with their de-facto leader Dragon Lee (Rhydian Vaughan) being the only son of Monga's Temple Front triad. We're soon introduced to the rest of Prince's crew, which includes the intelligent and brooding Monk (Ethan Ruan), the cowardly A-Po, and fighter Monkey. We're told of the team's dynamics and how Mosquito soon finds himself a loyal member of the group, who spend most of their time playing truant to while away at their hideout, or to visit prostitutes, where Mosquito soon falls for a hooker with a large facial birthmark (Ko Chia Yen), beginning a romantic subplot that's tender enough not to get in the way of the main narrative.

The first half of the film puts the spotlight on the shenanigans of this youthful group as they go around squandering their lives away from school, and into fights. Unlike Crows Zero where schoolboys trounce each other with far out powers, the fights here is almost balletic in delivery, and serves as quite the highlight, especially with their kill or be killed mantra. Like a cautionary tale, it tells of how impressionable teenagers can be especially when showed with much needed attention and gifts, which comes with the price-tag of eternal loyalty.

Loyalty though seems like a dirty word however, especially when there's always that temptation and rationale of serving self-interest first, or when it boils down to a family matter, where real kin blood runs thicker than water or even brotherhood. It's a walkthrough the Monga ecosystem where we learn of the various turfs set, and how scary the gangsters with real powers can be, being seemingly everyday persons on the streets, and quite nonchalant about their position as gangster chiefs, though coming complete with uncouth, vulgar vocabulary to betray their calm business fronts.

Just as we're getting comfortable and chummy with the Prince Gang, the narrative turns on its head as it enters a darker phase in the run up to the finale, with a boot camp for martial arts training in various Chinese weapons being the middle point where boys are trained to become men of war. Everything becomes more serious as Prince Gang unfortunately gets woken up to inevitable reality, and while faced with a potential internal strife, things don't look all too sunny at Monga with the advent of the Mainland Chinese gangsters who are salivating at a hostile takeover.

It is here that Doze Niu himself comes to the forefront as Crazy Wolf from the Mainland, up against the established Monga powers such as Boss Geta played by Ma Ju Lung, both actors putting up powerful, riveting veteran performances in contrast to the teen idols Ethan Juan and Mark Chao who do hold their own, but certainly the gulf in charisma is obvious. The latter half becomes a commentary on the fear of change, of being inside a comfort zone, that any threat to change the status quo is a declaration of an all out, no holds barred war. It's almost akin to any situation where the incumbent almost always feel threatened by change, and to put it into our own topical context, how we rationalize our fears toward new immigrants into our land who inevitably shake up what we hold dear, and some having total disregard to what has preceded, but to want to stamp their own brand of the way things get done.

It is this half that examines what loyalty really means, whether lip service or something to be carried out with honour, and the narrative spins into a hydra of subplots, all of which will get addressed as the film races toward the end with plenty of urgency and closure. You'll be kept glued to the screen for the most parts of its extended narrative which encompassed plenty of themes and ideas, and the characterization here will definitely make you feel something for all the characters, making you care whether they live through their ordeal, or not, which is telling of the strength of the story and storytellers involved. And I'll say it again, the fight scenes here are stylishly filmed, complete with blood and gore and with fluidity (love those one take, sweeping camera motion), even though we have to suffer the unceremonious censor scissors every now and then for this NC-16 rated film.

To the local audience, you may already be familiar with gangster flicks such as The Days from last year. Monga though, makes that look like child's play, and the Crows Zero films really look too out of this world given Monga's ultra-realistic setting. If gangster flicks are up your alley, then don't let this one pass you by as it's highly recommended!

Taiwanese actor-turned-director Doze Niu's second feature film, MONGA is a local box-office knockout at the turn of 21st-century's second decade, notably for humbling the juggernaut AVATAR (2009) upon its release (grossed more than $8 millions, it is a humongous number for the itty-bitty island).

Niu's film smartly harks back to the indigenous gangster counter-culture in the 1980s which is left with an indelible mark by auteur names like Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien, it takes place in the Monga ("Monga" means "little boat" in tribal dialect, it is today's Wanhua, Taipei's oldest district), local gangsters are safeguarding their respective turfs where street vendors, temples, brothels and their patrons are among the hustle and bustle peopled within the mazy, narrow alleys.

A 17-year-old Mosquito (Mark Chao in his star-making movie debut) moves to Monga with his single mother (Lin Hsiu-ling), bullied by classmates in the school, he is recruited to the "Gang of Princes" as their fifth member, nominally lead by Dragon (Vaughn), the son of the triad leader Geta (Ma Ju-lung), but the real savvy one is the consigliere Monk (Ethan Ruan), whose devotion to Dragon roundly surpasses the usual purview of scorned brotherhood, and Niu acutely channels the tangible bromance into the narrative but camouflaged as a brotherly friendship, and leaves the signals hither and thither without asserting the obvious. Monk, as his name suggests, is the only one who shuns the brothel, but through his intimate interaction with Dragon, and the benign gestures with Mosquito, we don't need to be spoon-fed to understand what is his deal.

Genre tropes start to encroach the gleeful tone when the quintet comes in for the usual hiccups, from a vapid girlfriend squabble, to a vengeful act (with super-glue) goes awry, until the impending annexing bid from a main-lander Grey Wolf (Niu himself, exuding understated menace but doesn't hog the spotlight by dint of his directorial clout), power-usurping is in the pipeline and assassinations begin to pick off the old-guards, which are designed in a cavalier fashion and to some degree distracts viewers from taking its graveness seriously. But a pivotal reveal portents the disintegration of their bond which will be topped off by blood-spilling fratricide, which also flags up Niu's penchant for over-egging the pudding with wordy elaboration albeit the stylish visual artistry (blood morphing into cherry blossom is a nice wrinkle).

The central young cast is gratuitously photogenic and Mark Chao comes off as slightly stilted but acquits himself in Mosquito's greenness and the consequential disillusion. But the showstopper without any doubt is Ethan Ruan, who won a coveted BEST LEADING ACTOR trophy in the Golden Horse Awards, which is the most prestigious recognition from pan-Chinese cinema. His endeavor impresses with both physical exertion and copious pathos. In the main, MONGA breezes a bracing air into the teen-gangster genre, which usually entails a veto of a mainland China release due to its unlawful subjects, and subsists its ethnographic mark remarkably.

After the stunning "What On Earth Have I Done Wrong?," the second film by the persistent director/actor Niu Cheng-Ze(aka Doze Niu) has finally been released under expectations. Besides the attractions of the new generation actors/idols Juan Ching-Tien and Zhao You-Ting(aka Mark Zhao), everyone was also expecting, if this will be better than "Cape No. 7," the Taiwanese box office miracle back in 2008. From the first day box office record, it was helped by the success of "Cape." As for the film itself, it's so much better than "Cape." The story begins from a non-Minnanese teenager, who was raised in a single parent family and had no friends, faced the embrace of the "Prince Gang," an inheritor of a major local gang, he of course couldn't resist the eagerness of getting recognized. But the best of youth also came to the inevitable testament of humanity.

Before I saw the film, I couldn't help wondering, if this will have the shadow of "I Vitelloni" by Fellini, or the look of "Goodfellas" by Fellini's follower Scorsese, or even the glamour of "City of God," by the Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles. When it comes to the violent scenes, the way Niu used the slow motions and soft instrumental score reminds me of Scorsese's romantic sentiment. I could also tell he was trying to avoid any too artistic presentation. With the outstanding editing, it was very intense with the length of 140min. It inherited the deep observation of Taiwanese gangsters by Hou Hsiou-Hsien and Chang Tso-Chi but also gives it a new look for the audience to get close to more easily.

Though it's not perfect, the plot came out of Niu's thinking direction makes it more reasonable than any other new Taiwanese films. The desire for friendships of the accepted boy, Mosquito, led him to be the most loyal member in the gang. He was too innocent to see the fragility of humanity. Monk, who was considered the smartest one, could only be trapped in a fate of religious superstitions. His value of loyalty, due to one single false judgment and the raised anger of vengeance, has been pushed to the edge of his reason with the paradox in his heart. To decrease the strong masculine of a gangster piece, Niu added the young prostitute who made Mosquito know what love is. This blended a sense of tenderness into the film smartly.

Comparing to saying it has the romanticism of "Goodfellas," it's in fact closer to the tragedy of the conflict between idealism and realism we see in "Infernal Affairs" and the remake "The Departed." It's not told from a first person, unlike most Scorsese works, but from the upgraded multiple point of views such as "The Departed." More strictly defined, Mosquito and Monk, like Tony Leung and Andy Lau, DiCaprio and Damon, are the two narrators of the story. But shamefully, the characters lack of the quality of more vivid or heartfelt which they could've been, despite of the enough backgrounds and motivations and the natural twists and truths. While being so, it's still a film that represents the period and culture in Taiwan truthfully. It is unique and has the unique feeling that only Taiwanese audience can connect to.

Sandee Chan's music leads the atmosphere successfully. It even has a slight epic feeling of "The Godfather" and a slight sharpness of "City of God." With also the quality guaranteed sound processing by the national treasure Tu Du-Che, the performance of sound in the film really reached an international standard. Niu selected a hit at the time "Making Love Out of Nothing At All" by Air Supply especially to describe the time Mosquito and the young prostitute spent together. It also added up a bit of cute and retro cheesiness. The big space for the two leading actors to interpret also made them the promising candidates for the year-end's Golden Horse Awards. This film can also be seen as the unity of Taiwanese filmmakers, such as an award-winning actor from "Cape No. 7," the producer of "Orz Boyz" and even the director of "Winds of September" who joined as an assistant director with his crew. It all shows another Taiwanese Cinema New Wave has officially been set off.

There is nothing wrong with the story board…a young man got bullied in school and eventually join the gang to protect himself. And then it's the story of his gangster life, brother hood, betrayal, woman… The director try to put the message into the movie through the story, however I don't feel the message comes solid and the it ends up just become a slogan with no meaning. Another thing I don't feel comfortable with the movie is…the costume. To me, the people are more like 60's to 70's dressed. You know… the bell bottom, the skinny shirt, the flower print…. This is nothing reminds me the 80's! Well I ain't no Taiwanese and I don't know the fashion sense in Taiwan in 80's. Maybe was like this there. In conclusion, the story goes smooth but somehow the core message is missing (very weak) and the costume which really confuse you the era takes place.