Jin shou zhi

I watched Infernal Affairs when it first hit these shores, and really was engrossed in what was an incredible tour de force of a movie. This film reunites the two leads from that classic film in an attempt to reignite that spark, and personally I found it generally worked.

We have a reversal of roles, with Tony Leung playing the villain as againt Andy Lau playing the dedicated policeman. The storyline centres around the rise & fall of the a crooked developer during the growth & rise of Hong Kong through much of the 1970s onwards, all with the background of the story of Hong Kong behind it.

This film really does get so much correct, and matches Infernal Affairs in terms of acting, direction and pacing. I was engrossed in this film, and thoroughly enjoyed the storyline as we saw the ebbs & flows of the Tony Leung's crooked developer rise to the top, and all his amorality in everything he does. He plays everyone, not always winning, but comes out on top at the end. Andy Lau plays the cop dedicated over the decades and failing to bring down the crooks, with the case taking its total personally as much as professionally.

Despite the positive aspects, the problem is though that I think for what should be a more serious film, there were moments of ridiculous nonsense which were unnecessary and took away from the film, in its humour and at time comic representations of various people (especially of the foreigners in Hong Kong). Tony Leung is excellent, but at times it was hard to see how his character really was a genius or was he just lucky. It just seemed to not add up. That kind of took away from the film.

Regardless of that, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and look forward to watching it again. I was surprised by the negative reponse by some to this film which is a shame. Maybe this film is a throwback to an old era of Asian gangster movies, which I admit is one I truly love. In this day, this film seems like a relic, but I don't care, I still find there's a place for films like this.

Personally, it's the best new film I've watched for a long time, and much better than any new film I watched over the past year in particular. I just hope that this film will help to introduce a new audience to Asian gangster movies, which rely on character and storyline as against CGI & comic book heroes.

I really recommend this film, it's been wonderful to watch these two great actors again a film that matches their status.

Wanted to see what grandpa Tony is up to these days. His most recent movies that I have seen are Hidden Blade and Shang-Chi. And he's looking very much like a grandpa on his socials, but they do some movie magic here cause he's perfectly refreshed. What I'm saying is I'm now attracted to grandpa Tony so there's that... He is really captivating here as the baddie, a very charismatic, chill dude, with plenty of hidden depths that are barely alluded to. He's always been good with that enigmatic smile of his.

Andy Lau and Tony Leung once again on opposite sides of the law, only here they switch places. So that was also exciting. They have plenty of scenes together but I wished for even more.

The first half hour is captivating enough but the following hour I admit I had to push through. There's a lot happening, a lot of characters and side plots and the execution is quite good overall, but I just wasn't that into it. The last half hour gets things back on track and got my attention again, exposing the scope of the scheme, the many ramifications and hidden figures and in the end the venality of the main orchestrator and it is a beautiful thing to uncover, I am just sorry about that middle part cause I don't know what happened there.

It's not Infernal Affairs and it's not Wolf of Wall Street but with this story it could've been and I don't know why it wasn't and I'm a little frustrated about it.

Also, I couldn't find a version in Cantonese so I couldn't relish Tony's voice and sometimes it's obvious that it's dubbed. I like Mandarin but I will always prefer the actors' voices.

There's a Chinese saying called tiger head, snake tail, which perfectly describes the film. The Goldfinger starts with a bang with over the top scenes that harkens back to the heydays of HK cinema. But as the story progresses, you realize how thin of a plot the movie has. The film fails to develop further on what is a very interesting rivalry between Tony Leung and Andy Lau, even worse if you consider how much of a classic The Departed was. In the end, the film is too "business-oriented" and not driven by its story enough. To make matters worse, the ending feels like something to appease movie authorities.

It kinda reminds me of a Chinese TV series called The Knockout (Kuang Biao), given their similar duo-protagonists, ambitious-police-versus-powerful-criminal setups. But really, The Goldfinger is extremely fluent and complete, with a convoluted plot, captivating narrative, and outstanding performances across the board. Some of investigation and stock center scenes impressed me especially, which are perceptibly well-considered and thought-out. I see no immediate flaw after my first watch-through. If we have to knit pick, I guess some of the dangling threads in the first half could be resolved with more detail, for instance Carmen's part and KK's end. Overall, I'd say this is one of the best Chinese films of the year.

Giving this an 8/10 rating

New crime thriller from the filmmakers of 'Infernal Affairs' which had Andy Lau in, and he's in this too, along with Tony Leung.

Tony Leung, plays an poor engineer who comes to Hong Kong seeking work and gets involved in wrong doing that escalates in him running a criminal empire of billions, Andy Lau, plays the police investigator who goes after him. It's all very complex and very tense.

It looks and feels of the era it's set in the 1980's and corruption is all over the place. Even the slow parts still engage and you see just how greedy people can really be. It's a lovely production and the acting is full on brilliant, which does make up for action, which there is some, it's not done with any glamour, it's done to shock. But it's really the two main leads who pull off the show, again. Another true story that I did not know about.