Review Index

Home

Synopsis: A group of friends in mainland China cross over the border into Hong Kong to set up shop as a Triad gang. Styling themselves as the "O" gang, our group of aspiring gangsters are, at first, overwhelmed by the largesse of capitalism, by the luxury of Hong Kong. After their first score, they team up with local crime boss, Tai, who, unbeknownst to them, is a police informer. Tai manouevers them into killing his police contact. This results in open war, as the "O" gang turns on Tai, and the police turn on everyone...

Prototype: If you are familiar with the history of Hong Kong action movies and the "Hong Kong New Wave", the copyright date on The Long Arm of the Law should tell you all you need to know about this movie. First, it will tell you that it is untouched by the influence of John Woo, perhaps untouched by the influence of Tsui Hark. It predates the tidal wave of gun movies that came in the wake of A Better Tomorrow (and predates A Better Tomorrow itself) by several years. Second, it will tell you that this is a purely commercial film in which "art" (whatever that means) is accidental. Third: it will tell you that this is primarily an exploitation film. But for all of that, it is interesting as all get-out.

You can actually see the beginnings of the Hong Kong Action New Wave in this film. Like many films of this vintage--particularly Jackie Chan films--this film offers several scenes of completely over-the-top mayhem. The killing of the policeman, Fatso, is typical: it's not enough to just shoot him. Our anti-heroes empty their automatic pistols into him, knocking him over a three-story high railing onto an ice-rink, where his bloodstained body slides for about 15 meters, leaving behind it a blood-red skid. This is completely outrageous, made moreso by the relatively mundane filmmaking surrounding it. The filmmakers who came along a couple of years later--John Woo in particular--would include more and more of these sorts of sequences until they defined a kind of operatic style all their own. The Long Arm of the Law kinda sorta does this itself in the last fifteen minutes of its running time. Here, following an extortion plot gone horribly wrong, the "O" gang goes to ground in Kowloon's notorious Walled City. They are eventually cornered by the police in a running shoot-out. Holed up in a dead end chamber above an underground hospital, they are riddled by a hail of bullets that seems to last forever. The Wild Bunch had nothing on this film in terms of firepower expended. One other item of note is the persistent use of short lenses, which lend certain shots a sort of "fish-eyed" aspect. This, too, became a signature of the dawning HK New Wave, particularly in the hands of Woo.

All of which makes the film sound greater and more self-important than it actually is. There are serious deficiencies to be found in this film's performances, many of which are broad charicatures by not so good actors. One of the film's producers is Sammo Hung. Hung doesn't appear in the film, but you can feel his influence in the uneasy mixture of knockabout comedy and horrifying graphic violence. Certainly, some of our anti-heroes are amiable doofuses when they aren't being gangsters. The other major influence on the film seems to be Kinji Fukasaku's Yakuza movies. Many of the primary relationships and plot points seem drawn from his Battles Without Honor or Humanity series, particularly in this film's depiction of "honor" among thieves, or, rather, the lack there of.

Millennial Unease: The tendency of HK action films from this period to veer into a bloodsoaked nihilism strikes me as being Hong Kong's version of millennial unease. The approaching millennium promised the rule of the Communist Chinese once the territory was handed back to them in 1997. This film predates the Tiannamen Square massacre, but there's no mistaking the fear of such strong-arming in these films. The Long Arm of the Law in particular posits a brutal threat from invading mainlanders. Is this intentional? Probably not, but it percolates through, none-the-less.

Not that any of this matters. This is a film designed and executed to titilate the fans of action films. In this regard, it must be counted as a success. As an exploitation film, The Long Arm of the Law works perfectly.

11/4/05

Addendum for 12/28/05: In honor of the "official" 100th anniversary of Chinese film, I must note that The Long Arm of the Law was one of the films cited on The Hong Kong Film Awards list of 100 greatest Chinese films. With all due respect to the voters, they have got to be kidding. Historically, yes, this is an important movie. Yes, it's pretty damned entertaining, too. But, really: let's have some perspective, shall we? The entirety of, say, Zhang Yimou's output is better than this film, and arguably more important. Did they include every film Zhang has made? They did not. Mainly, this another instance where the folly of these sorts of polls is made explicitly manifest. I am happy to see that it's not just lunkheaded American institutions like the AFI that do it.