Summary
A Chinese heist film that wears its influences on its sleeve but it’s stylish and there’s some damn fine set-pieces. Based on a true story to boot!
It’s been five years since Lau Ho-Leung’s directorial debut Two Thumbs Up, an elaborate heist film set in the New Territories. His follow-up, by way of screenplays for Johnnie To and several shorts, lands back in the same genre with panache.
Based loosely on a series of real robberies in the 1990s, Detective Zhong Cheng (Wang Qian Yuan) leads a task force in pursuit of Eagle, a criminal gang led by Zhang Sun (Daniel Wu) aka Falcon. Over the better part of a decade, their cat and mouse game inches them closer to a confrontation.
CAUGHT IN TIME (限期破案) is well aware of the massive history of heist and action films that have come before. There is the obvious comparisons with Heat, of course, and John Woo’s The Killer is visually referenced (with an actual clip from the 1989 cult classic used several times). Yet this is not to imply that Lau’s film is wholly unoriginal, as it has its own style and vibe to match.
From its slickly shot locations to elaborate bank vault break-ins using rope, Lau’s screenplay is all about the interplay between the characters. Due to the ’90s setting, it’s refreshingly free of techy gadgets, save for a few pagers that were all the rage in Stars Hollow a few years later.
Through a series of impressively staged set-pieces, including a street shoot-out that’s properly Michael Mann-ish, it all builds to a showdown in a bathhouse that would make Viggo Mortensen proud. It’s a fast and brutal fist fight that uses its environment well, a throwback scene that wouldn’t have been out of place on-screen in the ’90s it is depicting.
There’s a minor subplot involving Jessie Li as a suicide-inclined love interest, mostly there to give the impressively mulleted Wu something to fight for. Of course, running through the film is a pervasive thread of the triumph of law and order. Lots of CCTV, demonstrations of police force, and a big poster reading ‘Persistence without Respite’ are all there to reinforce the idea of police power. Indeed, a pre-credits coda gives us arrest stats for the era! It’s like all the boxes of the 1930s Hollywood Hays Code being ticked in real time.
Still, while CAUGHT IN TIME may not revolutionise the heist genre, it’s going to please a lot of existing fans. Lau solidifies his reputation as a writer and director, and it will be interesting to see if he continues down this path.
2020 | China | DIRECTOR: Lau Ho-Leung | WRITER: Leo Hong, Lau Ho-Leung | CAST: Daniel Wu, Qian Yuan Wang , Michelle Wai | DISTRIBUTOR: China Lion (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 10 December 2020 (AUS)
