There are triad movies, and then there are triad movies.

I’ve always been a fan of blood and gore in action movies. I think the obsession sort of started when I was around seven years old, when my parents would rent betamax (yeah, I just dated myself) tapes of Jet Li and Jackie Chan kicking ass. The homoerotic gun battles of Chow Yun-fat would come much later but eventually become much more influential than the kung-fu movies of my childhood.

People who have never heard of Mark Gor (Ma Ge or Brother Ma) might want to step away from this entry right now.

I have a rather un-girly aversion to romantic and dramatic movies, prefering the testosterone-fueled flicks detailing the lives of Hong Kong triads. I actually have the complete DVD set of the “Young and Dangerous” movies, as well as all three of the Infernal Affairs (Wu Jian Dao) trilogy.

It’s cheesy, over-the-top and the homoerotic undertones are undeniable. Welcome to the Hong Kong triad genre. The stories may diverge a bit, but it all really just boils down to brotherhood and righteousness. And swagger, too, by the way. Lots and lots of scowling and posturing and swaggering.

From the genre-defining (A Better Tomorrow, Hard Boiled, Killer) to the tragically bloody (Moment of Romance, Tragic Hero), I suppose I’ve seen nearly every triad movie I can get my hands on. There are disappointments, of course, like Ah Sao, which is really a stupid drama masquerading as a macho triad movie.

And then, of course, there are gems. I’m not talking about the Infernal Affairs series and the “undercover cop-vs.-triad” movies that appeared in its wake. There are more than a few brilliant triad movies, particularly in recent years, but there’s one that really stands out: Exiled.

Starring five of the island’s greatest triad genre actors (Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Lam Suet，Nick Cheung and eternal triad baddie Roy Cheung), Exiled tells the story of five assassins — sworn brothers torn apart by a mission. I’m not going into details (I’m sure wikipedia is the place for that), but, well, let’s just say it’s the most beautiful triad movie of the century. With old-world Macau as its backdrop, Johnny To’s luscious cinematography captures the lawlessness and inescapable world of Jiang Hu, where good and bad don’t really matter so much. The first scene opens and you just know they’re all doomed to go down in a beautiful blaze of gunfire.

Inertia in the movie is palpable, with the protagonists held captive by indecision and a realization that there really was no way out. When the ninety minutes are up, there’s really just nothing left to say. Or maybe there is:

Johnny To, you are a god.

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Rant of the Day
a.k.a. “as if this post isn’t long enough”

Kim Chiu, according to the PDI, has released an album named “Gua Ai Di”. The album contains the song “Peng You” which she sang on TV (while inside the PBB house) and the Teresa Teng classic “Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin”, mistakenly billed as a song “traditionally” sung at weddings. First of all, we don’t have a song “traditionally” sung at weddings. Second, I get the point. She’s Chinese.

AND SO???

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 11:38 am and is filed under celebrities, chinese-ness, fangirl, movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.