Just Say No
Actor-director Marc Ma recycles the twists, turns and grimy gangster vibe of his debut for some SEA drug terror.
Go For Broke
Director: Marc Ma • Writers: Gu Haoran, Marc Ma, Zhao Haozhe
Starring: Nick Cheung, Ethan Juan, Sandrine Pinna, Marc Ma, Vithaya Pansringarm, Jack Kao
China / Hong Kong • 1hr 55mins
Opens Hong Kong Oct 10 • IIB
Grade: C
You know what the problem with drug movies is? Most times they get drugs wrong. Don’t misunderstand. I’m not marginalising very real addiction issues because that is most definitely a thing. But drug movies always start from the position that other choices exist. There are choices for pain. There are choices for depression. There are other solutions to cycles of poverty, violence and disadvantage. In too many cases there are not – which is why people take drugs. And giant corporations taking advantage of drug addiction and its enablers have only recently been taken to task for their role. Another drug movie problem comes from producers’ abject refusal to admit everyone else takes drugs – coke, weed, cigarettes (ka-ching!), alcohol (ka-ching!), caffeine (ka-ching!) – because they’re fun. We enjoy them. Trainspotting dared admit that way back in 1996 and man, oh man. The ire directed at Danny Boyle for sending “irresponsible messages” when he was actually just pointing out the dangerously fine line between use and abuse.
Actor-turned-director Marc Ma Yuhe has zero time for such nuance in Go For Broke | 重生, the simultaneously shot follow-up to his overwrought action-thriller debut Wolf Hiding. The story? Drugs bad. The end. Okay, sure, there’s a bunch of narrative hysteria, cartoon villainy and last minute fake-outs – sorry, “clever twists” – along the way but the reductive message is loud and clear. One hit off a bong and next thing you know you’re living under an overpass, tricking for dime bags and burying the children you let run wild near busy freeways. Then your family is going to have to plot to destroy the dealers that did this to you. See? Drugs bad. Even by action movie standards this is some weak-ass tea.
Just say no, kids
Said underpass is where the sweet and innocent wife of Zhang Yao (Nick Cheung Ka-fai, doing literally all the acting there is) lives with their daughter. Yao is a former soldier (?) who’s been off on a fishing boat for seven months (??), and when he gets home to Southeast Asian Hellhole™ Mancheng City, the wife’s sold the restaurant they own in order to support the drug habit she developed. The dealers she has to pay off are wondrously slimy and egregiously tatted, and they want their money now! Of course, everyone dies and Yao goes on the warpath seeking revenge.
His targets are regional drug lord Mukun (Thai veteran Vithaya Pansringarm, Only God Forgives) and his band of merry henchmen, led by the ambitious Herta (discount Louis Koo, Danny Chan Kwok-kwan, Bruce Lee in Ip Man 4) and dirty cop Anpei (Taiwanese veteran Jack Kao Kuo-hsin). One of Anpei’s underlings, Andu (Ethan Juan Ching-tien, The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon) also lost family to drugs, and on top of it he’s at loggerheads with Anpei over the way he treats his young mistress, Nancy (Sandrine Pinna, Tales of Taipei). Before you can just say no, Anpei and Yao have teamed up and found a way for Yao to infiltrate the criminal underworld – because he’s a special ops guy now? – and forge an partnership with junkie Balai (Ma). Together they plan to take down the scummy barons and rid Mancheng City of the scourge of drugs.
Go For Broke is considerably less offensive than Wolf Hiding; Ma and writers Gu Haoran and Zhao Haozhe find a way to spin their ridiculous story without needless rape subplots this time, so progress I guess. But they remain committed to too much plot, too little logic and cinematographer Kenny Tse Chung-to’s grainy, saturated visuals. Oooh, shaky cam. Must be danger lurking. The highlight of the film is an unsubtle Scarface shout-out and shoot out that is OTT in a way that, had there been more of it, might have tipped Go For Broke into bonkers delight territory. Instead, it’s an almost carbon copy of Wolf Hiding – many of the same actors, same writers, and at a glance same locations – with the same China-adjacent revisionist twist and run time padding. Ironically, considering the pro-war on drugs vibe of Go For Broke, there’s absolutely no effort whatsoever to including any passages or montages that look even remotely like law enforcement procedure. No paperwork. No legal aid. No arrests. Ma’s Mancheng City is an urban nightmare that makes near bankrupt New York of the 1970s look like Disneyland. With more drugs.