Triangle (Screen Daily Review)

[dleedlee]

Triangle (Tit Samgok)
Lee Marshall in Cannes
18 May 2007 13:13

Dirs: Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, Johnnie To. HK-Chi. HK-Chi. 2007. 100mins.
Not so much a portmanteau film as a cinematic relay race, Triangle sees three leading Hong Kong directors, each with their own team of scriptwiters, taking on three successive parts of a single thriller.

Though it's a fascinating experiment, the film never really overcomes the unneveness of style, thematic focus and even character development that is inherent in the exercise. Still, this Hong-Kong-set Treasure Of The Sierra Madre yarn has its moments – especially in Johnnie To's stylish final section.

Fans of all three directors – who already have this high up on their wishlists – will be the main market for this Hong Kong curio, which is less likely to tempt foreign buyers than some of To's recent standalone titles – unless they be niche distributors with their eyes on fanbase DVD sales.

The project was initiated by Tsui Hark, who also got to direct the first segment, scripted mostly by first-timer Kenny Kan. The main problem with Hark's opener is that he seems to be trying to squeeze two acts of a three-act film into just over 30 minutes.

Frantic, fragmented and difficult to follow, the story hinges on three friends, taxi driver Ah Fai (Louis Koo), estate agent Bo Sam (Simon Yam) and antique dealer Mok Chung Yen (Sun Hong Lei) – though we're forced to take their friendship as read, as the only thing the three have in common is that they are desperately strapped for cash.

The three pals are planning a bank heist, but when a mysterious old man hands them an ancient gold coin and tells them that this is only part of a far greater treasure, they switch horses, and discover – under a bathroom floor in a government building – a Tang-dynasty burial hoard.

If we never discover who their mysterious benefactor is, it's because Lam and To have other dramatic fish to fry. As in the game of 'exquisite corpse' – a relay writing or drawing exercise popular with the Surrealists – Lam inherited Hark's finished segment and got to continue it, while To and his regular writer Yau Nai Hoi had to find a way of wrapping the two parts he was given by his colleagues.

Lam is more interested in the figure of Sam's wife Lin (Kelly Ling) and Sam's tortured relationship with her, with its shades of Vertigo (he had a lookalike first wife). So a choppy but energetic set-up about money-lust, peppered with Hark trademarks (an underpass car chase, threatening Triad thugs) morphs seamlessly (it's difficult to spot the exact point where the baton is handed over) into a more reflective second-act psycho-thriller that plays on themes of loyalty and betrayal, before switching register again in Johnnie To's appetising final act, with its blackly comedic character turns (including Lam Suet as a drugged-up tyre mechanic) and highly stylised final shoot out.

The larger cracks in this collaborative high-rise are papered over by Cheng Siu Keung's atmospheric, Hong-Kong-noir photography and Guy Zerafa's moody soundtrack, which alternates breathy sax orchestration à la Shaft with electrified ethnic chants. And we read design, rather than accident, in the changing locations of the three parts, which move from the cage-like urban streets and apartments of Hark's fist act to the country roads and reedbeds of To's finale.

But though the cast of tried and tested HK pros (particularly the ever-watchable Simon Yam) deals gamely with tonal shifts in their characters, they can't quite act away the bumps.

Triangle is an intriguing exercise because of what it reveals about its three directors' creative DNA. What we really want to see by the end, though, are the three films these guys would have made if they'd been able to pick up the ball and run with it for ninety minutes.

Production companies/backers
Milkyway Image
Media Asia Films
Polybona Film Distribution Company

International sales
Dreamachine

Producers
Tsui Hark
Ringo Lam
Johnnie To

Screenplay
Half Leisure
Kenny Kan
Sharon Chung
Yau Nai Hoi
An Kin Yee
Yip Tin Shing

Cinematography
Cheng Siu Keung

Production design
Raymond Chan
Tony Yu

Editor
David Richardson

Main cast
Louis Koo
Simon Yam
Sun Hong Lei
Lam Ka Tung
Kelly Lin
Yao Yin
Lam Suet

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