Mad Fate is one of the more demented cinematic offerings out of Hong Kong that I've seen in a while! (Film review)

  

Mad Fate had its world premiere at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival

(and its Asian premiere at the 2023 Hong Kong 

International Film Festival)

 

Mad Fate (Hong Kong, 2023)

- Soi Cheang, director

- Starring: Gordon Lam Ka-tung, Lokman Yeung, Berg Ng, Peter Chan Charm-man

 

It sometimes can seem like Hong Kong filmmakers (or, at the very least, those who come up with English titles for Hong Kong movies) have an obsession with the word "mad".  How else to explain there being movies over the years with titles like Mad Dragon (1969), Mad, Mad Sword (also 1969), The Mad Bar (1970), The Mad Killer (1971), A Mad World of Fools (1974), The Mad Mad World (1981), Mad, Mad 83 (1983), It's a Mad, Mad World I (1987), II (1988) and III (1989), It's a Mad, Mad World Too! (1992) and... I think you get the picture!  

And, by the way, Mad Fate is the second Milkyway Image crime drama with "mad" in its title; with Johnnie To having also having a hand in producing -- and, in the case of the earlier film, directing -- Mad Detective (2007).  To be fair, the (police) detectives in this 2023 offering that's co-produced by Johnnie To (but directed by Soi Cheang) are actually on the sane side.  They also are not the movie's main characters though. (And yes, I do think it's telling that, like with last year's crime drama with a mentally unstable protagonist, Detective vs Sleuths, police officers are not the focus of the film.) 

 

Instead, Mad Fate's two principals -- both of them eccentric and of questionable sanity -- are the fortune teller referred to as The Master (portrayed by Gordon Lam Ka-tung) and a younger man prone to bloodlust known as Siu Tung (played by Mirror's Lokman Yeung); both of whom are introduced to the audience in memorable, well-designed and -shot sequences that take place in very different locales.  (In the case of The Master, it's a cemetery where he's carrying out a feng shui ritual to cheat fate; while in the case of Siu Tung, it's in an apartment building in Quarry Bay that's home to a number of brothels, including that of a prostitute called Jo (played by Ng Wing-sze) and The Master's client whom he was performing the ritual in the cemetery for.)

 

After a grisly murder is enacted, Siu Tung is found at the scene gleefully stepping in the blood of the victim -- who, when he entered her abode, was still alive but very clearly dying.  An ex-con currently employed as a delivery boy by his parents, who own a noodle shop, he immediately falls under suspicion; with his situation not being helped by the case's lead detective (played by Berg Ng) having been the police officer who previously arrested him for animal cruelty (after he was caught red handed trying to kill a scraggly black cat with menacing eyes).

 

But The Master, one of whose clients the murder victim was, takes it upon himself to vouch for Siu Tung -- and also try to rid him of the bad luck that he's fallen under.  In so doing, he is trying once again to cheat -- or, at the very least, change -- fate; something he believes can be done, albeit in ways that can seem pretty mad as well as elaborate and extreme!  So much so that it takes a giant leap of faith, among other things, to trust him; and it really doesn't help for it to get revealed that The Master has had to wage a life long battle with insanity!

 

Here's the thing: Mad Fate is full of scenes and sequences that are technically impressive and eye-catching.  It's also got interesting ideas and messages aplenty; including the conceit that nothing is a result of mere chance and what appears to be a suggestion that in trying to fight fate, one might well go mad!  It's just that as its story goes along, it feels increasingly preposterous and demented, and becomes in grave danger of spinning out of control.

 

And it doesn't help that lead actor Gordon Lam Ka-tung (who also starred in Soi Cheang's most recent movie prior to this one, Limbo) puts in another of his portrayals that may be too over the top; with Lokman Yeung a sometimes too eager to produce a similarly showy performance.  Amidst it all, the most restrained, if not completely rational either, performance of all is by Peter Chan Charm-man -- whose bespectacled character is referred to as The Murderer.  And it may be the most impressive precisely because it's so!        

 

My rating for this film: 6.0