Boom, Boom, Yau
Herman yau rustles up some Hong Kong favourites for a by-the-book drug thriller and a killer closing frame. Bravo, Herman. bravo.
The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell
Director: Herman Yau • Writer: Herman Yau
Starring: Lau Ching-wan, Aaron Kwok, Louis Koo, Alex Fong, Edward Chui, Gallen Lo, Tse Kwan-ho, Yang Caiyu, Chan Kwok-pong
Hong Kong • 2hrs 5mins
Opens Hong Kong July 27 • IIB
Grade: B-
Don’t @ me. Those pictures you’re looking at are what the producers of Herman Yau Lai-to’s The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell | 掃毒3: 人在天涯 offered up as stills for press. Fitting, given this is Yau’s second spin at the franchise action maestro Benny Chan Muk-sing started with The White Storm in 2013. It looks a little rough around the edges. Yau has clearly gotten comfortable in the chair, even as he strips the meatier, more dramatic elements out of Chan’s initial film in favour of boom, boom, pow. But Yau has never met a tanker truck or remote village he couldn’t ah-splode.
Heaven or Hell is a straightforward, no muss no fuss crime thriller, ostensibly also exploring the grey areas of the drug trade, but mostly exploring how guns fire and stuff ah-splodes. That may be the way to go. Chan’s relatively thoughtful film leaned towards Hong Kong’s golden years tonally, and picked up a cool US$45 million at the box office worldwide. Then Yau came along, and The White Storm 2: Drug Lords hauled in US$190 million. Maybe his boom boom is the key for what has become, essentially, an anthology series. Star Louis Koo Tin-lok is back for round three (I guess his other “Storm” series is over?), Lau Ching-wan returns after skipping #2, and Aaron Kwok Fu-shing joins the cast this time. New characters, new story, same brand name.
Best frenemies
Heaven or Hell starts with a long, noisy, shoot-out between Hong Kong’s, ahem, finest, led by Chan Sir (Alex Fong Chung-sun, One More Chance) and Thai-Chinese drug lord Suchat (Lau Ching-wan, looking ever so pleased with himself as a sloppy, hippy trafficker) and his gang. When it ends, former undercover cop Au Chi-yuen (The Hardest Working Man in Hong Kong Show Business, Koo), who ran with Suchat as Wing, has lost both his target and his partner – Cheung Kin-heng (Kwok, still freakishly youthful looking), or Billy to the gang. The dealers run off to hide in the jungle of the Golden Triangle, and then everything blows up some more. This is Herman Yau we’re talking about. Along the way we’re treated to the story of how this trio met, how they bonded, and where it all went to hell. A few too many times but there it is. After fleeing Hong Kong, Suchat and his crew hole up in a village on the Thai-Myanmar border and he immediately starts to scheme, wondering how he can get rich without a wealthy, recreational drug using-slash-addicted consumer base. Along with his Thai partner Wee Noi (Tse Kwan-ho, A Guilty Conscience), he plots to take over the local despot-slash-drug lord The Commander’s (veteran Gallen Lo Ka-leung) routes. Or heroin and meth business. Or something. Meanwhile, Heng is developing a friendship with Noon (mainland actor-singer Yang Caiyu), a sweet villager who’s got no other option than to cultivate poppies and sell raw opium if she wants to eat. Eventually, Au and Interpol and the Royal Thai Army swoop in and get the bad guys and rescue Cheung.
Woven in between the pyrotechnics and ballistics is a very, very subtle thread about regions and entire national economies’ dependence on the drug trade, government and military collusion in it, the collateral damage of the shock and awe tactics of the the failing (failed?) war on drugs, and on a personal level the toll the job takes on Cheung and Au’s personal morality, their identities, and the blurred lines between duty and relationships. Yau has done this kind of under-the-radar criticism or analysis before, in films like the prison system-focused From the Queen to the Chief Executive, and Whispers and Moans, about sex workers. But for now, the larger morass of the drug trade is for another film, probably a television series or perhaps a lengthy non-fiction book. This is a Yau summertime actioner with appealing stars doing their star thing. Lau, Koo and Kwok seem to be having a good time, and despite the Noon character being essential to the under-explored secondary themes and sucking the air out of the film every time she comes on screen, The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell clips along at a respectable pace as it hops from boom to bang to pow. If nothing else Yau runs away with the prize for best last line in any movie this year so far. That one will be hard to top. — DEK