This Again
We’re running out of ways to say ‘Hysterical bone-headed crime thriller about the hellscape that is Southeast Asia.’
Wolf Hiding
Director: Marc Ma • Writers: Gu Haoran, Marc Ma
Starring: Nick Cheung, Ethan Juan, Darren Wang, Paul Chun, Danny Chan
China • 1hr 47mins
Opens Hong Kong February 22 • IIB
Grade: C-
If anyone’s looking for ideas, there’s a probably a thesis paper in the meaning of the 2020s surge in state-approved, moral absolutist neo-noir films set in tangentially Chinese, anonymous Southeast Asian cities where Latin script adorned with various diacritics is the standard. These are mostly hellholes where danger lurks around every corner, especially for Chinese nationals. Whether it’s a luxury tourist destination plot, unwitting indentured servitude in an online fraud factory, or getting wrapped up in a corrupt legal system, one ventures into SEA at one’s own peril. Actor-director Marc Ma Yuhe doubles down in Wolf Hiding | 怒潮, another in the endless chain that pulls form Korean revenge thrillers for added visceral grit – guns are few and far between in Wolf Hiding – and treats us to 100% more gang rape. Rage tide indeed. Sign me up.
The sinister thing about Wolf Hiding is that on the surface it looks cool enough. It mimics the Korean aesthetic well, tosses in a little ’80s/’90s Hong Kong brotherhood gangster hokum for added flavour and finishes it all off with an appealing cast led by Hongkonger Nick Cheung Ka-fai, and popular Taiwanese actors Ethan Juan Ching-tien (The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon) and Darren Wang Talu (the idiot gambler in No More Bets). But the often impenetrable visuals (literally) and plot (figuratively) that unwinds itself for a third act “twist” we knew was coming (a twist is as important to this sub-genre as it is to M Night Shyamalan) trades in OTT characterisation and exploitive story beats that just make the whole affair sordid in the wrong way.
Wolf Hiding starts with yet another super-conglomerate in the grips of a power transfer. The chair of the Hong Tai Group (veteran Paul Chun Pui), based in an unnamed city whose car license plates start with “MJ” so do with that what you will, is stepping down to run for public office. He plans a lavish Buddhist ceremony to announce the new boss, which is rudely interrupted by drunken mess of a cop Mai Longwen (Juan), because reasons. He has a manly stare down with the Hong Tai gang muscle, Ma Wenkang (Wang), before the ceremony is suddenly cancelled. Seems the heir apparent Ovalon, sometimes called Avalon because the English subs are for shit, is dead, and his killer, Chen An (Cheung), DGAF who knows it. Ma, Hong’s ice cold right hand (Danny Chan Kwok-kwan) and the bitter, under-appreciated adoptive son (director Ma) assume someone hired him to kill Ovalon, and that as potential successors they’re next.
But Chen’s only real motive is to create chaos, because he has a first-rate evidence wall detailing Hong Tai’s illegal trade in human and organ trafficking in his rural hideout and a serious chubby for revenge. There’s an orphanage backstory, a dead sister, a heart transplant, blah blah blah. It ends with the bad guys getting theirs and order being restored. Of course.
Glossy packaging aside Wolf Hiding is a hot mess of mixed messaging about what constitutes good policing, poor creative choices regarding the artistic validity of rape as a narrative device for men, and a bonanza of retrograde bad guy behaviour. In case you didn’t know the human traffickers were awful, there’s lots of sneering, spitting, greasy hair (haven’t the good people of Mexico had enough with Trump?) and frequent refrains of “Stupid woman!” Some of the film’s big set pieces like the hospital corridor throwdown – choreographed by Korean maestro Shin Jae-myung – happen for reasons that are a push at best; as if they’re there because Ma decided it was time for a fight scene. A highlight, though, comes from the subs again, as some ragtag demonstrators demanding action for missing friends and family in front of a police station hoist placards that say “I protest strongly”. How polite. But on the way to the inevitable conclusion (of course, there’s a recap in case you fell asleep, which you probably did) that sees the villains go down, the rotten corporate overlord removed, a cop who coloured outside legal lines for the right reasons gets a glimmer of forgiveness. You know he’s getting a slap on the wrist. Some of this nonsense would be forgivable were there a larger point to be made (beyond: Don’t leave home) or a nasty, nihilistic ending that usurped expectation…. yeah. No. — DEK