“PUNISHED” 報應 Movie Review. HE who seeks REVENGE should REMEMBER to dig TWO GRAVES.

“PUNISHED” 報應  PRESS PREVIEW

This film is a tension filler about bad people facing bad karma.

In life you reap, so you sow.

All over the world, at home and in the workplace, you find scores of baddies.

ANTHONY WONG just fits into this baddie role like a glove, as if there’s anything unusual about that.

He’s this Hong Kong’s foremost baddie thespian sporting his trademark scowl, grunt and rant ….

and is back again playing a baddie kingpin at your expense.

This kind of role can do him no wrong.  He’s absolutely magnificent.

This time round, he’s out on a vengeance streak to wreak havoc on the ones who had wronged him.

In PUNISHED, his callousness only allow him to remember those who had slighted him.

He is this deplorable tyrant who uses underhand tactics to terrorize his staff and he runs his family with an iron rod.

As a punishment his bratty teenage daughter is kidnapped and subsequently killed by suffocation.

Naturally, he’s out on a rampage.

Take note that in everyone’s life, there will always be a violent “downpour” when you are down-trodden upon, left to die in a pit and you can probably do with some vengeance.

Revenge can be uplifting, and you needn’t go to church for that.

Blood will spill blood, haven’t you heard?

RICHIE REN plays ANTHONY WONG’s ever loyal bodyguard.

He’s well connected with the underworld triads and will go out on a limb to do anything and everything for his unscrupulous employer (or won’t he, really)?

Maybe there’s a secret agenda, something that’s more than meet the eye, but stay tuned for the twist.

 Whilst the bodyguard goes to uncover the culprits with great efficiency, the hapless tycoon finds little peace of mind on his own, and is listless about payback.

He has spun his own web of darkness and is now trapped within. There’s no turning back.

Multiple flashbacks shuttling back and forth throughout the entire movie reconstruct the flow of events to explain the dire situations, taking us into the shaping up of an explosive family drama with its hardboiled violence.

His beloved daughter Daisy (JANICE MAN) is dead, but nothing is what it seems.

As the story  delves, we find that the sweet daughter was actually a wayward spoiled brat and cocaine addict who openly defied her stepmother (MAGGIE CHEUNG) and her control freak father.

“PUNISHED” strips apart the facades of two men of contrast capably played by ANTHONY WONG and RICHIE REN, heading for a meltdown.

One is a corporate bully who has to watch over his back all the time.

The other is a subservient follower who can solve most everything for his boss, yet is unable to cope with his disdainful adolescent son.

Sterling performances by the two male leads take this movie one-up above the usual cop-and-robber fare.

It is a intense compelling film directed by LAW WING CHEONG that embodies rage, revenge, confrontation, conscience and eventual retribution.

Pomp, power and all the material wealth in the world cannot redeem peace of mind and happiness.

You might want to know if there’s any redemption in the pseudo-spiritual finale.

Go check this out.