Saturday, January 13, 2018

A Little TLC(w): 97 Aces Go Places (1997)

This movie starts off firmly in the same “overly broad and not especially funny” category as The Banquet, but it ends up somewhere around “definitely not good, but weirdly enjoyable just the same,” more like The Royal Scoundrel.  As a bonus, it’s pretty short, so it’s not too much of an investment.

When his triad father is “killed” by con artist Mandy (read:  he has a heart attack after she tricks him out of a pile of money,) the decidedly not-gangsta Ho Sik is told his father’s dying wish was to be avenged by his son.  Despite the family bringing in an ace assassin to teach Ho Sik how to shoot, he has a hard time pulling the trigger, as it were.  For one, Mandy’s being chased by the goons of a rival gang leader that she also swindled, and before Ho Sik knows it, he and his gunman buddy find themselves on the run from these guys with Mandy and her sister.  For another, Mandy’s just too darn pretty.  However will it turn out?

You can probably guess exactly how it turns out, because it’s that sort of movie, a broad action comedy with some pretty obvious plot beats, some dubious slapstick, and some crazy overacting (especially on the part of Francis Ng, who plays Brother Liu, the other triad boss.)  Evidently, the film is a sequel/reboot of sorts to an earlier movie, also called Aces Go Places, and word on the street is that the original is vastly superior.  It’s hard for me to get a good handle on Hong Kong action comedy, because I’m pretty sure most of the films I’ve seen aren’t good examples of the genre, so I can’t tell what these movies are supposed to be like.  Maybe I need to check out some Jackie Chan classics sometime, to get a better sense of how these Tony Leung Chiu-wai movies rate.

That said, despite its major silliness, this is yet another of these types of films that I do kind of like, especially once Ho Sik, Mandy, and co. start running together.  There’s just something about the cast dynamics that I enjoy, and Christy Chung in particular is pretty watchable as Mandy.  Full disclosure, though, I’ll admit that a big part of my enjoyment is down to Leung’s character.  IMDb credits him as Cheong, but Ho Sik almost exclusively refers to him as “drunken shooter,” so I’ll do the same.  A gangster-action equivalent to the drunken master of kung fu stories, this is a guy who’s constantly plastered but still shoots with deadly accuracy.  His action scenes are a lot of fun, doing ridiculous flips and making insane shots while swigging from a flask or nearby decanter, almost lazily being a total badass.

The drunken shooter doesn’t give much of a damn about anything.  He’s invested early on in Ho Sik killing Mandy, since he gets “a day off” once the deed is done, but once Liu’s guys are on their tail and they fall in with Mandy, he’s not all that bothered by it.  He takes out bad guys distractedly, he falls asleep at the drop of a hat, and when Mandy plays the seductress with him (testing to see if she should worry about leaving her sister alone with him,) he makes it abundantly clear that he only has eyes for Lady Alcohol.  In the midst of all the craziness and amped-up acting, it’s kind of fun to have a character who’s so unruffled.

Recommend?

In General – Not necessarily, though I don’t know that I’d call it bad.  It shapes up to be a half-decent movie by the end; it just takes quite a while to get there, and I wouldn’t say it’s worth the wait.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai – Here, I’d give it a maybe.  The gunplay is cool, and the mostly-blasé humor cracks me up, along with the drunken shooter’s habit of suddenly popping into frame from out of nowhere.

Warnings

Violence, drinking (obviously,) swearing, sexual references, thematic elements, and some tacky gay jokes.

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