Golden Job

I gather Golden Job is some sort of sequel to an earlier series of Hong Kong action pictures. It's glossy, well-produced and like the very similar The Adventurers, was mainly filmed in a variety of European locations. It's like an oriental blend of Ocean's 11, with the more recent remake of The Italian Job, with a lot less plot and far more, (predictable) seen before, highly choreographed action scenes.

The acting from the very much male dominated cast is strictly cardboard, run of the mill. The women folk are very much shuffled to the sidelines to get out of the way of the boys having fun and creating much chaos with their big, fancy toys. I think there are only 2 tiny roles. One is of a rather silly girl, who later becomes your regulation damsel in distress and the other is a do-gooder of a doctor working in an African village.

The narrative tries to be multi-layered but is clearly faking it and simply exists to allow us to move between action scenes. All I can further add, is that I really hope the calibre of Golden Job isn't indicative of the quality of the earlier films. I think I'd prefer a dose of John Woo's 80's and 90's material any day to this derivative, generic product.

Golden Job is a fast-paced Hong Kong action movie reminding of the genre's golden era between the late eighties and mid-nineties. The film is similar to other contemporary genre flicks like The Adventurers and Europe Raiders.

The movie convinces with a steady pace from start to finish. The action sequences are fluid and spectacular. The car chases towards the movie's climax and the infiltration of the fortress during the falling action and resolution are particularly memorable. The settings are also interesting as the film takes places in an African refugee camp, in the beautiful city of Budapest, in a traditional Japanese village, in the flashy city of Fukuoka and on the stunning coast of Montenegro.

On the negative side, the plot is predictable and almost shallow as one has seen similar movies on numerous occasions. A group of five orphans are adopted by a caring father and become mercenaries for a good cause. One of them gets corrupted by greed and turns against them. The remaining four brothers try to save him but things soon get too far. The fact that an intense action movie tries to be moralizing and attempts to teach lessons about family values is somehow misplaced and even cheesy. The film also features uninteresting side stories such as the eldest orphan and his love interest from a refugee camp or the adoptive father and his immersive experience in a Japanese village. The special effects look somewhat artificial at times, contrasting the almost philosphical content oddly.

If you like Hong Kong action cinema, you can't go wrong with the intense Golden Job. If you expect anything creative, profound or unique being added to the traditional genre, you will end up being disappointed. Golden Job is a good average genre movie that will grab your attention for one hour and a half but quickly be forgotten soon after. At the end of the day, I would only recommend this movie to genre fans.

The 2018 Hong Kong movie "Golden Job" (aka "Huang jin xiong di") from director Kar Lok Chin is definitely a trip down to the glorious 1990s, where the Hong Kong cinema was flooded with an abundance of action movies that were not so heavy on the script and storyline but crammed with an orgy of action, shooting and car chases.

"Golden Job" stars a handful of well-established and famous actors in the Hong Kong cinema. So it was definitely a nice treat to sit down and watch the movie, for a long-time fan of the Hong Kong cinema such as myself. The cast list includes the likes of Ekin Cheng, Jordan Chan, Kar Lok Chin, Michael Tse and of course Eric Tsang.

The storyline in "Golden Job" was entertaining for what it was, but don't expect this to be an intricate plot of twists and surprises. It was pretty straightforward, but also predictable and simplistic. But it worked out well in the charm of the feel of the golden age of Hong Kong action cinema.

The action sequences were nicely choreographed and executed, and they did carry the movie a long way. But needless to say that the collective acting efforts of the established cast also did its share to bring enjoyment to the movie.

All in all, "Golden Job" is an entertaining and enjoyable action movie, definitely watchable for what it was. I am rating the movie six out of ten stars. However, this is hardly a movie that warrants more than just a single viewing, because the storyline doesn't really have that much contents to offer - let's just be honest about that.

If you are a fan of the Hong Kong cinema, then you should take the time to sit down and watch "Golden Job". However, if you are new to the Hong Kong cinema, then there are far better movies to sit down and watch.

These Hong Kong actors are like Hollywood's Rat Pack, a group likes to stay together not just on the screen but also off it. These guys are the mid older generation actors, but none of them is actually talented enough to be called "great actor". Now, they are becoming older, even past their prime, but together, they have the powerful influence in Hong Kong's movie business.

By the over-the-top settings covering Europe and Japan, lot of exotic cars smashing, crashing lot of buildings, interrupting the traffic wherever they shot those car chasing and gun fighting scenes, the production budget obviously was so big, but sadly, it was developed on a weak, loose, and ridiculous messy screenplay, scenarios and plots, extremely cliche'd. Typical Hong Kong style but like these actors, it's not a good enough, matured enough movie, so formulaic and one-way predictable, no matter how much they spent on the special effects, CGI graphic and stunt coordination.

The worst part in this movie is their Cantonese dialog, a quite ugly dialect that simply lack the seriousness what a suspenseful action thriller should be even with the good English or Chinese subtitles.

Golden Job from director, action choreographer and stunt man Chin Kar Lok is somewhat a homage to the HK action flicks of the golden years while at the same time suffering from a basic storyline, silly script and typical Chinese film CG - that could have worked so much better in real life!

That said - flaws and all - I was quite entertained with it all. It was great seeing the now mature cast of Young And Dangerous back together again alongside director and star Chin, with the wonderful Eric Tsang and surprise supporting roles from the great Yasuaki Kurata and Billy Chow...

While the story itself was typical of a late 80s/early 90s HK flick, it did lend itself to some fantastic set pieces with nicely choreographed action and gunplay - particularly the last action scene which I found to be great fun!

While far from perfect - with one big let down for me being the lack of martial arts fighting Kurata had, and the same for Billy Chow. I hadn't seen him in anything recent for many years and most of his action scenes were done as gunplay...

I did like Golden Job. Although I caught it on my plane journey to Hong Kong, I'd be quite happy to watch it again on a bigger screen and hopefully appreciate it a bit more.

Hopeful next time, director Chin Kar Lol will lay off the CG and guns and give us some good old 80s style HK martial arts we all really miss!