The Goldfinger is not a film I value all that much! (Film review)

  

Officially opening later this month but I've already seen it!

 

The Goldfinger (Hong Kong-Mainland China, 2023)

- Felix Chong, director and scriptwriter

- Starring: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Andy Lau, Simon Yam, Charlene Choi, Alex Fong Chung Sun

 

Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Andy Lau reunite in a blockbuster (whose HK$350 million budget makes it one of the most expensive Hong Kong movies ever made) directed by one of the scriptiwriters of Infernal Affairs, the 2002 crime drama they starred in that Martin Scorsese remade into the multi-Oscar winning The Departed.  Glossy looking and beautifully shot by cinematographer Anthony Pun (who also lensed Hong Kong's current all-time box office champ, A Guilty Conscience), this Mainland China-Hong Kong co-production looks to aim to be a major crowd pleaser but I can also see its clearly ambitious makers expecting critical acclaim and have the film be the Federation Of Motion Film Producers of Hong Kong's next Best International Feature Oscar nominee. 

 

But like Where the Wind Blows (2022), another big budget period crime drama which stars Tony Leung Chiu Wai and was indeed the Federation of Motion Film Producers of Hong Kong's official Oscar selection last year, The Goldfinger left me cold and feeling it's yet another style over substance offering which won't win over that many Hong Kong viewers (though it could maybe satisfy Mainland Chinese ones).  And, sorry, having the Independent Commission for Corruption (ICAC) as the movie's good guys (rather than the cops) is not going to cut it these days; especially since the ICAC are among the organizations involved in making political arrests these days (along with the Hong Kong Police Force and National Security Bureau)!

Speaking of the police: The Goldfinger begins with police officers rioting(!) and threatening violence against unarmed individuals(!!).  Early on in the film, it also is revealed that Lau Kai-yuen (played by Andy Lau), the ICAC officer in charge of a major investigation against businessman Ching Yat-yin (portrayed by Tony Leung Chiu Wai), is a former police officer -- something which might be expected to explain his doggedness in pursuing his prey over a lengthy period of time during which Andy Lau morphs into an older man who, rather disturbingly, resembles Hong Kong's Financial Secretary Paul Chan!

 

For his part, Tony Leung Chiu Wai remains recognisably himself over the course of proceedings -- but his Ching Yat-yin character does radically change in circumstance and clothing style: from a poor, out-of-work engineer who looks to have been smuggled into Hong Kong by boat to a money-making genius who many were wont to believe had the golden touch and sat atop an international finance empire.  (Cue lots of work for -- and great work -- by such as the film's costume and set designers and art director!)  

 

A note for those who didn't realise: The film's titular character is based on George Tan, the ethnic Hokkien head of the Carrian Group whose fraud case has a large section devoted to it on the official ICAC website.  The following are quotes from it that can serve to outline part of The Goldfinger's plot: 

 

"In 1972, a 37-year-old Singaporean civil engineer arrived in Hong Kong to work as a project manager in a subsidiary company of a land developer. Soon the engineer was the land developer’s ‘hotshot’ and was even given the financial backing to establish a joint enterprise with the developer. Following the stock market slump in 1973, signs of rapid recovery in the Hong Kong property market began to emerge in 1976. The engineer saw a window of opportunity and started to purchase land in the New Territories with the intention of becoming a major property player..."!

 

This same engineer (who some people also had thought was Malaysian) went on to establish the Carrian Group.  In The Goldfinger, the conglomerate in focus is known as the Carmen Group.  In 1980, the Carrian Group acquired a high prestige property in Central called Gammon House.  In The Goldfinger, the Carmen Group acquired a high prestige building in Central known as Golden House.  And so it goes.

 

Watching The Goldfinger and the antics of its money crazy characters (who excessive money also turns them into pretty crazy people in general) can sometimes be akin to viewing -- not so much Crazy Rich Asians as The Wolf of Wall Street!  I know some people can derive some fun from doing so but for me, it can get too sleazy to seriously enjoy.  

 

Something else that I don't enjoy is the elements of the film that smack of casual racism, including casting terrible Caucasian actors to perform alongside a stat-studded and generally pretty capable group of Hong Kong thespians, and having one of them play a Southeast Asian presumably because he (Philip Keung) has darker skin than the average ethnic Chinese Hong Konger.  And then thre's the anti-British swipes that can feel like cheap shots and that I'd expect more from Mainland Chinese sources than contemporary Hong Kong movies. 

While we're on the subject of cheapness: I don't think a mega budget Hong Kong movie should be so carelessly made that not only is it way too obvious that scenes supposedly set in an overseas prison actually were shot in Tai Kwun but, also, that exhibit labels in its former prison cells be visible on screen!  Honestly, the more I think of The Goldfinger, the more problems with it I can finger.  I could go on but I think you already get the picture (i.e., I did not like this movie!), and thus will stop! 

 

My rating for this film: 5.0