You are currently displaying Big5
黑道風雲之收數王 (1999)
The King of Debt Collecting Agent


Reviewed by: AkiraRus
Date: 07/18/2004
Summary: Simple movie

Very predictable, very simple and very unoriginal movie but in the same time very undemanding and easy to watch. I think it's because of the actors - Francis Ng is totally great and very loose script allows him to improvise as much as he can. All the scenes with him are highly enjoyable.
6/10


Reviewed by: pjshimmer
Date: 07/10/2002

If you like crude humor, cussing like storm, nonsense comedy, and bad movies, go for it. If you like a good script, good acting, and some merit, don't go for it. It's a REALLY bad movie with horrible acting. Even Francis Ng is horrible. Nick Cheung looked much cooler in The Duel.

[2/10]


Reviewed by: Inner Strength
Date: 04/23/2002
Summary: Average

With more time spent on a better more original script and more character development, I think this could have been a very good film. But unfortunatly all the above was not done, and therefore ends up looking like 'just another gangster film'.

It's not too bad, but it's nothing original and pretty boring a good 50% of the time. Francis Ng & Anthony Wong bring the only solid performances in this too.

Rating: 2.5/5


Reviewed by: Sydneyguy
Date: 07/03/2000
Summary: Standard movie

With a great cast and a great title which HK movies SHOULD be famous for, this was a real disappointed!!

MY EXPECTATION: I was expecting some type of tricky way to make people pay back there money but NOPE that didn't happen! Instead it's more like "Just give the money will you!!!"

I was not totally bored watching this, but not excited either!! With big stars, i expected lots and it didn't deliver!! No or little comedy as far as i remember and all the actors here are wasted!!

A great title which the movie doesn't live up too!!

4/10


Reviewed by: magic-8
Date: 06/06/2000
Summary: Save Your Money

"The King of Debt Collecting Agent" started out with some promise. It had the feel of a Wong Jing gambler movie, as Nick Cheung plays a small time debt collector with inventive ways of carrying out his work, using his brain over braun. The film got bogged down after the initial scenes depicting the creative ways to collect. It soon loses steam when there is nowhere to go as Nick's problems arise with his conflict against Francis Ng's character. But, you stopped caring about any of the characters. The freshness wore off quickly as the plot began to get muddy and uninteresting.

Francis is underwhelming here. His overacting was a tad too much to bear. While Anthony Wong plays another one of his throw away Triad roles. Nick Chueng doesn't do much to impress. He needs more than an easy smile to do better work. A better script and wiser decisions as to the type of roles he takes on would help tremendously.


Reviewed by: ryan
Date: 11/21/1999
Summary: King of Debt Collecting Agent, The (1999)

After having tons of erotic and porn titles, 'The King of Debt Collecting Agent' opens with very strong promotion by putting different varieties of advertisements in newspapers. They even challenge piracy by 'asking' those guys in piracy watching their movie. In addition, they are confident with their production by claiming that they have a good plot.

As the movie titles says, the whole movie is about debt collecting agent. CHAN Sai (Nick CHEUNG Ka-fai) was in debt with CHAN Bobo (Francis ENG Chun-yu) and start working with Bobo as debt collecting agent. The agents under Bobo includes Pa-fong (Sam LEE Chan-sum), Tit-tar (Turbo) and Finging Head (HOI Chun-kit). Being successful in helping a powerful guy to collecting debt from Chiu-chau Tsam (Anthony WONG Chau-san), Sai started establishing his debt collecting firm. With their skills in debt collecting, they stand out in the whole industry. However, this starts the jealously from Bobo ......

The production claims its scripts as a quality script by spending a year to write. I believe they may put lots of efforts in it. Unfortunately, the plots seems to be something too documentary while they overlook the importance of the characters. Characters are lack of opportunity to act. It seems the movie has put too much stuffs without enough time to present. When talking about the blowing up of Sai's firm, they present even case less than one minute. This seems a bit too rush as audience cannot feel how are the skills they are using and how they plan for the actions. Since they sell their skills in policy, I consider they should put more context on that side rather filming typical fighting and putting lots of debt collecting cases without focus.

The whole story is also too pale in describing the characters. Francis NG and LAW Koon-lan seems a bit stand out only because of their own acting skills. Another problem of the movie is that it cannot set up the environment for the regenance between Bobo and Sai. This resulted in lack of impression or feeling for regenance at the final part of the story.

Another thing that I found weird about 'The King of Debt Collecting Agent' is the rigid adoption of current stuffs. For example, it is weird when Sai talked to his mon (LAW Koon-lan) when he said that he prefers selling pirates rather than being a debt collecting agent. LAW puts the issues of anti-piracy in a way that does not suit the circumstances at all. Another example is putting the issue of the Court of Final Appeal is explaning the authority of citizenship by LAU Shek-yin. All these does not help in making the movie current, but shows how poor the presentation is.

Concerning the dialogues, it seems that the whole movie are trying to use foul language to reflect its reality by pronouncing some terms closed to it. However, they don't want their movie as Category III. I consider such trade-off is understandable. It seems that the turnout is that audience laughs whenever they hear such dialogues. I don't know if this is their original purpose also.

In terms of the performance of actors, it seems that there are lots of actors but most of them cannot act in their standard. One of the obvious examples is Anthony WONG Chau-sang. It looks like he hasn't put much effort to act well. For other actors like Sam LEE Chan-sum, his character is just another duplication from 'Made in Hong Kong' (1997) and 'Trust Me U Die' (1999). For Turbo and HOI Chun-kit, it seems that they charactors are very stereotyped and lack of further elaborations.

Hopefully, there are two characters with good performance -- Francis NG as Bobo with his outstanding interpretation of the character. LAW Koon-lan as Sai's mon in a way makes you feel her cool.

In short, 'The King of Debt Collecting Agent' with confidence from the production company. However, its plots seems to be standard and lack of impressive stuff to remember. Most actors seems are not in their standard. Though this would not make you feel disappointed, it's not a movie for highly recommendation.