The Goldfinger opens on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital in the UK from Trinity CineAsia on May 20.
Fictionalized or otherwise inspired retellings of the travails of Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) continue to reap creative fruit for filmmakers. Several years ago saw Felix Chong take the leap for his own focused tale dating as far back as the beginnings of the ICAC in the 1970s, and therein, the tale of an engineer-turned-billionaire fraudster in the new crime drama, The Goldfinger.
Reteaming with one of the key shepherds of the Infernal Affairs trilogy, actors Tony Leung and Andy Lau take center stage from a script by Chong which sees Leung take on the role of Henry Ching (Tony Leung), struggling to find decent work until he links up with real estate developer K.K. Tsang. As the film tells it, their friendship marks the early embers that ignite the spark as Ching’s economic climb escalates from helping Tsang game competitors into buying up properties, to ramping up his own endeavors with the help of personal assisstant Carmen (Charlene Choi).
Par for the course are Ching’s interests in buying up Golden Hill House, a lavish commercial building that’s become prime real estate under British ownership. Between this, and the multitudes of businesses Ching has established under Carmen’s name, and the muscle he manages to poach from another competitor in stockbroker Chung (Michael Ning), it’s only a matter of time before the film’s ever so-thickening plot begins unraveling with the chronicled entry of the ICAC’s inquiry into Ching’s dealings.
That’s where lead investigator Lau Kai-Yuen (Andy Lau) comes in – already established well in the first half of The Goldfinger as the plot divulges all in a series of storied flashbacks. Each segment weighs in on the roles people played in helping finance Ching’s business, the trust they put in their investments to him, and the scruitny he faced in the media when Hong Kong stocks collapsed. The film also gradually pulls back the curtain on a few key players who’ve assisted in cushioning Ching’s successes from afar.
Needless to say, as far a criminal empires go, much of these were ado with underhanded politics aplenty, skullduggery and fearmongering, and a body count. A near-fatal attempt on Lau’s life marks the most propulsive moment of the story, particularly given the pressure on Lau and his team amid Ching’s seeming untouchability.
Leung etches in a winning lead performance in a film that pairs him brilliantly with Lau. Actress Choi is an absolute scene stealer in a role that adds a colloquial understanding to her complex relationship with Ching, in association with her connection to Chung, played by Ning. Folks keen on Hong Kong cinema will take kindly at spotting laureates like Tai Bo who plays one of Ching’s rivals, and actor Chin Kar-Lok who also serviced the film’s action and stunts.
It’s not difficult to consider the arrival of a film like The Goldfinger either, particularly on the cusp of some real-world courtroom drama already making headlines. It’s been a weighty period for justice to surface its face too, much like Chong’s illustration of Leung’s titular antagonist whose curtain call would finally come in the early 1990s. The ending captions certainly burned a few question-sized holes in my brain, which makes a film like The Goldfinger all the more compelling. Some folks still believe in our respective systems of criminal justice, varying rates at which the wheels turn notwithstanding.
Others maintain a more critical viewpoint of the mechanisms of law and order, and rightfully so, as you can’t help but wonder how people can spend years upon years of using and abusing their wealth and privilege and getting away with it time and again, with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, if anything. If topical discussions like this weigh on you from time to time, then The Goldfinger might have something intriguing to offer.
