Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Action/ Bullet Ballet
Director: Ronny Yu
Year: 1989
Rating: 
NOT WORTH YOUR TIME
Considering what Ronny Yu had to work with, China White is a major disappointment. Look at the cast: Alex Man, Carina Lau, Ku Feng, Victor Hon, William Ho, Tommy Wong, Shing Fui-On, some of the top Asian character actors working at the time. Also, China White came out in 1989, at the artistic height of the Golden Age of Hong Kong Cinema (1985-1995). Ringo Lam and John Woo were reinventing how to make action films, but there were many other directors also doing quality work. Thanks to numerous actors trained in kung fu, fight coordinators frequently produced memorable results. And the industry still played fast and loose with safety, so stunts were frequently jaw dropping.
But China White fails on almost all counts. The script and characters are bland and formulaic, lacking the idiosyncratic and specific Hong Kong flavor, perhaps in an effort to reach an international audience. There’s only so much great actors can do with a terrible script. The filmmakers’ ambitions probably also explain why Russell Wong was cast as the lead. He speaks perfect English, but he just wasn’t a very good actor at this stage of his career. When he’s asked to show grief, the results are embarassing. But most of the blame rests squarely on director Ronny Yu’s shoulders. Remember how great Billy Drago was as hitman Frank Nitti in Brian DePalma’s The Untouchables? He’s like a different actor in China White, all cheesy histrionics. The structure of the script by F.W. Sileroy and Victor Hon is also quite poor. The film stops dead at one point for a 20 minute flashback explaining why two of the characters were adopted.
Probably worst of all, the action is as generic as the characters and dialog. Many bullets are fired, but the action choreography by Chris Lee has no zest. Even worse, there’s almost no hand to hand fighting and none of the awesome stunts Hong Kong cinema is noted for.
It’s a shame. There was potential in the basic scenario of a drug war erupting in peaceful Amsterdam. Bobby Chow (Russell Wong) was raised in Amsterdam’s Chinatown by his adoptive father, Uncle Chi (Ku Feng), and inducted into the triad. Like everyone else in Amsterdam, Chi’s triad deals drugs. There’s Vietnamese, Turks, Italians, Blacks, and Chinese involved in the drug trade, but they tend to stay out of one another’s way. Bobby urges Uncle Chi to take on the other gangs, but Chi wants to avoid a war. Unfortunately, Scalia (Billy Drago) has different ideas, manipulating the Vietnamese boss, Phong (William Ho), into making a move against Chi and his gang. A bloodbath ensues, eventually involving all of the nationalities.
Holland, specifically Amsterdam, is an interesting backdrop for an action film. There’s lots of local color, and Amsterdam hasn’t been overused as a location. Another advantage is that the white actors in the film aren’t as awful as the usual gweilo bottom feeders found in Hong Kong films of the time. But with action this lame and a script so rote and poorly constructed, not even the most talented actors would be able to breath life into a moribund mess like China White.
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