Organized Crime & Triad Bureau - All The Hats Are Grey

Nov

6

Organized Crime & Triad Bureau - All The Hats Are Grey

≡ Category: Action, Drama, Highly Recommended, Hong Kong, Movie Reviews, Suspense |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Action/ Drama/ Suspense
Director: Kirk Wong
Year: 1994

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA HIGHLY RECOMMENDED MOVIE

If you’re expecting one of those wildly exciting Hong Kong action pictures from the Golden Era (1985-1995), Organized Crime & Triad Bureau will probably disappoint you. Director Kirk Wong is going for something entirely different here. For Hong Kong cinema in the early 90s, this is what passes for a realistic police procedural.

Oh, nobody would mistake this for a documentary, but there are no wild kung fu setpieces, no spectacular bullet ballets, no insane stunts and no Cantonese comedy. All of the events that take place in Organized Crime & Triad Bureau really could happen in the physical universe we inhabit.

In one way, Organized Crime & Triad Bureau purports to describe the general structure and tenor of civil service organizations in Hong Kong in the early 90s. If we are to believe this movie, most civil servants in Hong Kong are apple polishers and asskissers who are more concerned with promotions and their careers than actually doing their jobs. If you are hardworking and incorruptable, you are ostracized. That’s what happens to Inspector Lee (Danny Lee), mockingly nicknamed Rambo. He receives nothing but obstruction from his boss, who is only too happy to take credit if he makes a good arrest, but is terrified of trouble of any kind.

And then there is a police watchdog organization run by Inspector Lam (Ricky Yi), which tries to nail Inspector Lee and his squad on charges of prisoner abuse (which they’re fully guilty of, by the way), not because they give a damn about the prisoners, but because it will enhance their careers. All of this has the ring of truth, if you ask me.

Danny Lee’s character is pretty one-dimensional, which makes sense since his job appears to be pretty much all he has going for him. Actually, Inspector Lee’s prey is more interesting. Ho Kin Tung (Anthony Wong) is a master criminal responsible for a string of jewelry store robberies. He is a vicious, depraved criminal, sure, but he is also loyal to his buddies and actually loves his mistress. At several points, he risks his own neck to go back for a buddy, much like soldiers do. His mistress, Cindy (Cecilia Yip), met Ho Kin Tung after she was raped. When Ho Kin Tung helped her get vengeance, they bonded for life.

Really, you don’t really know who to root for. As long as Inspector Lee manages to employ the full resources of law enforcement behind his boss’ back to track down Ho Kin Tung and Cindy, they’re hunted like rats. The overwhelming forces arrayed against them aroused my sympathy. The only reason the crooks get away is because of the timidity and obstruction of Inspector Lee’s boss.

The plot of Organized Crime & Triad Bureau is very simple. Really, it’s just a series of desperate gambits played by the crooks to escape and by Inspector Lee and his troops to catch the crooks. Both sides are reasonably clever, admirable in some ways, and reprehensible in others. If there is a real target of director Kirk Wong’s contempt, it’s corrupt institutions that don’t really exist to perform their stated missions, but rather simply to feather the nests of ambitious managers.

Does Organized Crime & Triad Bureau succeed as drama? Not entirely. It’s more like ethnography. It’s like Kirk Wong is saying, “This is what law enforcement, the justice system and criminal gangs are really like.” The audience is invited to observe, but it isn’t asked to emphasize with any side wholeheartedly. The movie is a marked departure from the heavyhanded emotional manipulation (which I don’t consider a bad thing) typical of Hong Kong cops and robbers flicks.

I found Organized Crime & Triad Bureau involving, but it didn’t make my blood boil like many of the classics of Hong Kong film, like Full Contact or Hardboiled.

So why have I rated Organized Crime & Triad Bureau so highly? Mostly on the basis of craft. The movie is incredibly tight. There isn’t a wasted scene. It’s beautifully shot and acted. The only issue I can take with the movie, on a technical level, is the overly repetitive music score, which makes the final shootout seem more monotonous than it really is.

In the final analysis, Organized Crime & Triad Bureau is easier to admire than to love, but I still recommend it. Watch it when you’re tired of Hong Kong’s full-throated melodramas and you’re in the mood for a relatively realistic police procedural.