Fast Who?
The tireless Herman Yau’s third (!) actioner this year lands right in the middle.
Customs frontline
Director: Herman Yau • Writer: Erica Li, Eric Lee
Starring: Jacky Cheung, Nicholas Tse, Karena Lam, Liu Yase
Hong Kong • 1hr 56mins
Opens Hong Kong July 4 • IIB
Grade: B-
You know, when you think about it, how truly “groundbreaking” is the Fast & Furious series (don’t answer that)? Because for all we go on about how wacky that franchise has gotten, cinematographer-director Herman Yau Lai-to has been throwing down wacky shit for fuckin’ years. Where is the respect? Watching his latest, Customs Frontline | 海關戰線 (which closed the Far East Film Festival in Udine earlier this year) you start to recall just how many large transport vessels (his recent Chinese foray, Moscow Mission) and major infrastructure (Shock Wave trashed the Cross-Harbour Tunnels, Shock Wave 2 took out the Tsing Ma Bridge) Yau has blown up over the course of his career; there have been entire villages, MTR stations and dockyards levelled, countless cars and planes demolished. In Frontline – which swaps out passé cops for customs and excise wonks – Yau goes full Speed 2: Cruise Control and lays waste to Star Ferry. Suck it, Diesel.
Customs Frontline is blue chip summer entertainment, in which Interpol is the go-to law enforcement agency, we’re supposed to buy into a thing called the World Customs Organization (holy shit, it is a thing), and best of all believe HK Customs staffers routinely get into high-powered shoot-outs with international weapons smugglers and African warlords. There’s not a single scene of our intrepid hero, Chow Ching-lai (Nicholas Tse Ting-fung, who pulls double duty as action choreographer), scanning through endless Excel spreadsheets or arguing with someone in IRD about the exact taxation rate for exotic plants from Patagonia. It’s a summer actioner. And it’s goofy AF.
What, no pocket protector?
The considerable action begins off the coast of East Africa, bathed in the requisite Middle East/Africa orange filter, where fishing boats from fractious Loklamoa and Hoyana (oh dear) get into it when Hoyana’s corrupt coast guard comes in, guns blazing, and sets off a classic International Incident. Then we get to see Loklamoa General “Fuck other countries! Fuck the whole world!” Casa (an inspired Solomon Cutler) barter guns for tusks with Dr Raw (Amanda Strang) – and kudos to co-writers Erica Li Man and Eric Lee Sing for the awesome supervillain handle – which somehow wind up floating in a derelict boat off the coast of Hong Kong. The hard-headed, risk-taking Chow (because of course he is) leads the customs crew onto the ship and finds it loaded with a bunch of dead white guys, a pile of weapons, and a compass for use on submarines. You know, good ol’ Casa wants a sub…
Now. In Hong Kong, Chow’s blown up his relationship with another customs officer, and he seems relatively unpopular at work – Brandon (Kenny Kwan Chi-bun) seems to hate his guts – but he has his mentor, the evidently kind but incompetent Cheung Wan-nam (Jacky Cheung Hok-yau) and his distinctive smelling coffee, on his side. Shit really goes sideways when a Thai customs squad, led by Ying (Cya Liu Yase), comes looking for the weapons – as do Dr Raw’s be-masked goons. Stuff blows up, department head Kwok Chi-keung (Francis Ng Chun-yu, I guess Yau got a two-fer) blames Cheung for the disaster, and sends Chow with Ying to Loklamoa on a joint task force or something. It doesn’t really matter, because we just need a reason for Chow to come back and go mano a mano with Raw’s right hand, Leo (Brahim Achabbakhe), on a tanker in Victoria Harbour.
Yau, Li and Lee can’t leave well enough alone so naturally they pile on. There are traitors, high-functioning bipolar agents, secret marriages (maybe?), perverts, conflict diamonds, cryptocurrency, office politics and rotten shipping companies. And let’s not forget ripe dialogue along the lines of “Don’t shoot. Beware of the biochemicals!” (duh), a deadpan “Well, why war?” (why not?) and all of Strang’s gloriously stilted delivery.
But it’s a mindless summer diversion, so there’s also a hilarious scene of a customs dude stranded on a lifeboat, a crazy rigged container heist with an SUV hanging from it, elevator catastrophes and the awesome ferry pier crash finale. There’s also an appealing supporting cast, led by Karena Lam Ka-yan working way too hard as Athena Siu, Kwok’s rival and a pain in his ass, Michelle Wai Sze-na, Ben Yuen Foo-wa and Carlos Chan Ka-lok. Everyone does their damnedest to make bureaucrats seem like badasses, and Yau is distracting enough with his mayhem to almost pull it off. Customs Frontline is better than Moscow Mission, but not as good as Crisis Negotiators, so if you’re only seen one Yau film this year, see that. Assuming he doesn’t crank out three more before 2024’s over. — DEK