★★½
“Pink only on the outside”
Lan Hsiao-Tieh (Lu) is one of four illegal immigrants to Hong Kong, who manage to escape from the human traffickers bringing them to the colony – albeit after Lan has been raped by one. She and her friends just about manage to eke out a living on the edge of society, which treats them very unkindly in comparison to legal residents: for example, working as a coolie, they get only a fraction of the wages. As a result, they’re forced into criminal activity. One of the victims of the resultant pick-pocketing is the feared Chief Detective Lu (Lui), who tracks down the gang and makes them an offer: go undercover and help in his investigation of a Triad gang called the Eagles, in exchange for legal status. Lan is doubtful – until she realizes that one of the targets is the man who raped her. With the assistance of training from a retired thief, Lan is inserted as the moll of the gang’s leader, Hao (Tien Feng).
The film leaves a lot of potential on the table. The retired thief angle, for example, is nicely set up: the immigrants initially think he’s a doddering old fool, except that’s just his cover. However, the training through which they go through is never particularly useful once Lan goes on her mission. There’s also an unevenness of tone. It wants to be a sympathetic and serious portrayal of the plight of illegal immigrants in Hong Kong. But the impact of this is rather undone by, for example, the scene where the wife of Lan’s squeeze confronts her. For the pair end up rolling around in a hot-tub, stripped down to their lingerie. While I’m not complaining, it does appear to have strayed in from another film. The same can be said for the soundtrack: I read that it borrows liberally from Planet of the Apes, and I could swear I heard some Rick Wakeman in there as well.
It all rolls along without anything in the way of surprises, until Lan finds out the time and date when a big deal is going down. This sets up Detective Lu with the chance to bust them in the act – and, naturally, gives our lead the change for revenge on her rapist. This is remarkably formulaic, and there’s hardly anything that makes it stand out from the competition. It’s neither serious enough to merit actual consideration as art, nor trashy enough to be a Cat III classic. Despite the promise of the cover, it’s more tacky than sleazy, in its shots of the heroine’s cleavage, never rising past PG-13 level, with even the sexual assault done “tastefully”. I only watched this three days ago, yet it made so little impression, I had to put it on again for the purposes of this review. And I am still struggling to reach our standard five hundred words.
Dir: Yueh Chien-Feng
Star: Lu Hsiao-Fen, Richard Cui Shou-Ping, Lui Ming