Trivisa

Just not my cup of tea. Feeling disappointed. Ruinned my evening.

Kudos to the trailer for selling me something that definitely is not to be found. Mildly interesting but ultimately an entire waste of time. The middle is entirely bloated and not worth enduring for the complete lack of anything that is the final 10 minutes. In retrospect its closing "reveal" is pretty pretentious in what it took just under 2 hrs to set up. Prior review of being blue balled is pretty sumacious. There is far vetter Asian cinema and entertainment to be had. That said it isn't really bad but it's certainly not good. An ultimate waste of time but I've wasted it on worse, hence a neutral (for me) 5/10, not warranting a "+1" or 6 nor a "-1" or 4. Make what you will though just my take.

Such an impressive piece of filmmaking. Shrewd plot line never overshadows the carefully delineated characters and their occasionally unsettling and in a few instances poignantly relatable lives. The cynic in me suspects, perhaps a bit unfairly, many will approach this film anticipating and maybe even hoping for yet another one-dimensional, albeit slickly well-crafted Hong Kong action flick, and with the renowned names synonymous with brilliant shoot-em-ups attached who would blame them? And yet, if you're like me and greedily ingest your South East Asian films only when piled on with some explosively creative and original flavor, then this one is for you, my friend.

Seen at the Viennale 2016: Three different directors make three independent gangster movies shown parallel in Chu Tai Chiu Fung. But all 3 plots have a common aim: the possible meeting of the 3 to join forces as some sort of super crime power, because all 3 of them have already robbed, kidnapped, murdered, and done black business up to the point that any done crime in the past is nearly impossible to top by one alone. It is interesting how different the 3 directors develop their main characters. One gangster is shrill, the other like an accountant, the third is always restrained. And the viewer gets the feeling a joined crime would never work out positively - to different are the 3 gangsters. The three plots are entertaining and quite good interwoven to get a movie with one single impact. But towards the end all three plots get lost somehow and also my interest on the outcome. A pity, because the final scene is fantastic. But too late. Anyway, good crime movie based on the state of Honkgong before its "independence".

The film is a fictionalized story about three real-life notorious Hong Kong mobsters, Kwai Ping-hung , Yip Kai Foon and Cheung Tze-keung, who are portrayed in the film by Gordon Lam, Richie Jen and Jordan Chan respectively