Summary
A super stylish film from triple-threat filmmaker Nick Cheung, this throwback is all about controlled chaos and is never anything less than visually engaging.
From the opening moments of THE TROUGH (低壓槽), in which director/co-writer/star Nick Cheung emerges from a Kombi van in the desert to vaguely alt.country strains, you know this film is going to walk to the beat of its own drum. Cheung’s third outing a director, following 2014’s Ghost Rituals (aka Hungry Ghost Ritual) and Keeper of Darkness (2015), may not break the action mould but definitely does enough to keep itself out of its titular ditch.
Undercover cop Yu Qiu (Cheung) has brought down many mobsters in his time on the wrong side of the law. However, when he gets involved in a child abduction case, Qiu uncovers a nest of vipers that threaten to expose his identity.
THE TROUGH was originally known as Taste of Crime, a remnant of which still exists in Cheung’s dialogue. It’s almost a more appropriate title in a way, as Cheung’s hyperkinetic thriller gives us just that. It’s like getting a tasting paddle from a criminal empire, where one minute we’re careening dangerously through traffic and the next we’re inexplicably sailing over the treetops in a wingsuit. The strange thing is, it all kind of works.
Above everything else, THE TROUGH is held together by some super stylish craft. The desaturated wash and high-contrast photography – shot in Shanghai, Japan, and Thailand – have led to this being unfairly labelled as a Chinese Sin City. This is in fact a stylistic throwback to Robert Rodriguez’s forebears, reminiscent of the high-impact Hong Kong action films of the 1980s and 1990s. It might just be the balletic bullets flying with frenetic frequency. Or it could be the “special appearance” by Maggie Cheung.
A particularly impressive set-piece takes place in a laundromat, a graphically lit shoot-out that violently erupts, blitzes the screen, and just as rapidly comes to a close. It’s more Neveldine/Taylor than it is John Woo, complete with a small propane tank being used as in impromptu grenade. It’s a testament to cinematographer Cheung Man-po that the aftermath of scenes like this one are just as impressive, framing the litter of bodies and destruction with a kind of casual chaos.
Cheung himself is a reliable foundation on which to build an action-thriller in this vein. He and co-writer Wen Ning give the character just enough backstory to add a fair whack of weighty intensity to every brooding stare Cheung offers the audience, and he offers quite a few. There’s a psychadelic buzz around his character when shit is about to go down. Sure, the little girl he is acting across from can’t deliver a line to save herself, but Cheung’s charismatic screen presence is more than enough to bridge that gap. Plus, there’s Qiu’s superior Jim (He Jiong) who taciturnly wears a hat like no other.
There’s undoubtedly a fairly repetitive pacing to several boss fights, and a jarring final act that leaps from exposition to a car chase and back to a hot air balloon in Japan. There’s a few moments there you may be forgiven for thinking you’ve missed a scene. As seems to be the trend in a number of Chinese films this year (see also: A or B), crucial information is only released halfway through the credits. Even so, THE TROUGH is never anything less than visually exciting, and continues to demonstrate Cheung’s chops as a triple-threat filmmaker.
2018 | China | DIRECTOR: Nick Cheung | WRITERS: Nick Cheung, Wen Ning | CAST: Nick Cheung, Xu Jinglei, He Jiong, Yu Nan, Michael Miu, Yuen Wah, Maggie Cheung | DISTRIBUTOR: Magnum Films (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 113 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 3 May 2018 (AUS)
