Movie Review: The Stool Pigeon/綫人

One thing I love about living in Hong Kong is that you can recognize places in movies.  I got to do that a lot with The Stool Pigeon/綫人, and I enjoyed it.

I also enjoyed the fact that (for a change) it wasn’t just the places with pink lights over the door.

**One thing I love about having friends in Hong Kong is that sometimes I can recognize them in movies too. Especially when they’re pretty women.

Gloriana Wong is pretty enough in person, but when she’s projected 20 feet high on a screen, doing things that make Nick Cheung appreciate acting as a career choice more than any silly acting award ever could, it’s very… attention-getting.**

I bet he intentionally f@#$ed up about 6 takes. I know I would.

I just felt bad that she had a very small role.

I felt good that she had a very small dress, but that’s not my point.

I felt bad too that her role was that of a home-wrecker with a contributing medical condition.

Having played that role in real life, I feel I can empathize.

But never mind that…Update Aug. 27: After verifying it, I can also tell you that Jane Wong makes an appearance too, portraying Santa's helper. Watch for her!

Director Dante Lam once again pairs Nick and Nic, but unlike 2008′s
Beast Stalker, Nick Cheung Kar Fai now plays the cop and Nic Tse Ting Fung playes the crook.

Nic plays Ghost Jr., a young man just paroled from prison who becomes an informant to help clear his family debt and get his sister out of a brothel.

Nick Cheung plays the cop who ‘runs’ Ghost Jr., an officer whose career has taken over his life and nearly destroyed everything else in it, including him.

I’ve got a PhD and I used to teach about film. One thing I made clear to my students was that I don’t go to movies to be edified/educated. I go to be entertained. And for me, if a film entertains me, it is a good film.

The Stool Pigeon/綫人 entertained me, and for that I am grateful. This year had been a pretty tough one for movies. After a good start at the beginning of the year, it’s been a long summer. But The Stool Pigeon/綫人 is a good film on its own merits. Put into the context of this year, and its a strong contender for best one of the year.

Dante Lam has crafted a gritty, visually engaging drama. I found myself enjoying the look of the film, which I don’t get much of from things like The Jade and the Pearl (aka The Sh*t and the Stink). Colors, focus, and movement are all well-utilized and at times even captivating. Details are noticeable and obviously considered, and it makes a big difference.

The action scenes are very well-staged and, more importantly for me, believable. The fight scenes, of which there are a few, are quite disturbing in their visceral impact. I have a feeling the NG reel would show us more than a few painful, real mishaps.

The acting is another plus, with both lead actors turning in credible and commendable roles. It’s rare to see a HK actor cry in a movie and feel like it is genuine. I’m glad that The Stool Pigeon/綫人succeeded on that point, because it makes a big difference. All the characters are believable, human, and rarely allow us to see them as actors. Included in this is feat is the capacity to be so realistic as to be unattractive, both aesthetically and behaviorally. Don’t get me wrong, I still love to watch Shing Fui On chew up scenes as the outlandishly mugging bad guy in old movies. But I can also appreciate actors who make us believe they are brutal, uncaring thugs in more subtle ways.

The Stool Pigeon/綫人 thoroughly entertained me. I was so involved in the script that I didn’t even notice that the story’s (moral/legal) loose ends all got tied up in a pretty red (read: China-friendly) bow. Sure, it’ll play Up Above, but it all made sense in the story and there was no idiotic  “Haha! I am actually a police officer and you are righteously arrested!” nonsense.

In fact the film’s ending was something I particularly liked. Not just for its content, but its execution as well. It is highly evocative of, or perhaps even makes a subtle homage to Hong Kong’s golden era of the 1980s, when Chow Yun Fat and Danny Lee made Reservoir Dogsthe first time and called it City on Fire.

If you read my reviews, you know that even when I hate a film, I don’t spoil it. And when I like a film, I am even more vague, because I want you to go see it.

Please go watch The Stool Pigeon/綫人 in the cinema. The film deserves our support. It’s a good, solid film that will entertain you.

And you get to see Gloriana Wong’s back in such detail that should be against the law.

But thank God its not.