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 east Cops" cleaned up the hardware in its
native Hong Kong's annual movie awards in 1998. The film was highly acclaimed by
the critics and was, most importantly, a box office hit. The screenplay is by
Gordon Chan and Hing-Ka Chan, with Chan ("2000
A.D.") and Dante Lam ("Option
Zero") teaming up to direct. It's not as action-packed as one might
expect, and actually builds slowly, leading up to one of those free-for-all
finales that Hong Kong Triads vs. Cops movies are known for. In truth, while
"Beast Cops" is an excellent entry into the stagnant Triads vs. Cops
movies, I can't really say if it's anything outstanding.
The film stars Anthony Wong ("The
Color of the Truth") as Tung, a slightly crooked, but mostly lazy,
Detective working a stretch of streets run by a gang. The head of the gang is
Roy Cheung ("Avenging
Fist"), who flees the city after a hit that he arranged goes wrong.
He leaves behind his cocky second-in-command, the young Pushy Pin (Patrick Tam),
whose rise to power coincides with the arrival of strait-laced Detective Cheung
(Michael Wong). Cheung is taking over Tung's unit after having shot his former
superior, a crooked cop, dead. While Cheung finds Tung and his partner Sam (Sam
Lee) to be ineffective, his traditional views of the job comes into question
when he falls for the spunky and slightly "off" Madame of a
bar/brothel.
"Beast Cops" is obviously a good film, but it's
nothing that hasn't been done before. It certainly doesn't breathe new life into
its genre, and while Anthony Wong is quite affable as a cop trying to walk the
unmarked line between being crooked and just "playing the game", the
ambiguity one expects of his character is not altogether well scripted. In a lot
of ways, Wong is playing the same character that he'll play in 2003's "Color
of the Truth". You know the character is not crooked, even if he
happens to gamble in the gang's illegal casino. And while proverbial sidekick
Sam Lee ("Bio Zombie")
runs around like a fool and bug-eyed (i.e. the standard Sam Lee shtick), you
also know that his cop is lazier than he is actually crooked.
The same is true for Michael Wong's Cheung. He may be
traditional and straight-laced, but he quickly gets into the "flow" of
things. You would think a cop who would shoot his own boss, and who got the
nicknamed "King of Killers" for his quick trigger finger, would be
less prone to corruption. (In one of the movie's odd moments, Cheung breaks the
fourth wall by talking directly to the audience; other characters in the film do
the same thing.) While Cheung never takes money, he falls easily for the ditzy
Yoyo (Kathy Chow) despite knowing that she's operating a place of prostitution
and, apparently, drug dealing.
But if you were to approach "Beast Cops" without
taking it too seriously (i.e. as the morality play that it seems to want to be),
then the movie is actually quite good. There's plenty of humor to be found,
although none so blatantly obvious that characters becomes Odious Comic Relief,
a trap many Hong Kong films seem unable to avoid. Although Sam Lee does come
close, even he manages to avoid the stereotype by playing his character somewhat
straight. Actually, the fact that tough guy Michael Wong ("The First
Option") has a squeaky voice is the funniest thing about the film, although
the movie never takes advantage of it.
To be honest, I'm not sure why "Beast Cops" was
so heralded in its native Hong Kong. It's certainly a good movie, there's no
doubt about that, and the ending is quite entertaining if you just ignore the
fact that cops are running into a known gang hideout ready to do battle with knives.
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but don't cops carry guns? Why would you voluntarily leave
your guns behind and storm a gang hideout knowing that one of your own is
trapped inside, armed only with knives?
As a Cops vs. Triads film, "Beast Cops" is a
solid entry. The relationship between cop Anthony Wong and criminal Roy Cheung
may seem unique and even fresh, until you realize that this "bond of
respect" has been used in so many other cops vs. gangster movies. Which is
not to say that "Beast Cops" is unoriginal. The men's relationship
with their women, especially Tung's unpredictable love affair with his gold
digger/sometime girlfriend, are not only well done, but might actually be more
interesting than the whole cop and robbers angle. Of note is a sequence
concerning a missing condom.
The co-directors of "Beast Cops" are Gordon Chan
and Dante Lam, two men responsible (individually) for some pretty good action
movies in recent years. Although Lam seems to have hit a very big pothole with
the idiotic "Twins
Effect" in 2003, Chan has gone on to direct the big-budget "The
Medallion" with Jackie Chan. While both men did a good job with "Beast
Cops", I had expected the whole thing to be a lot grittier. The truth is,
the movie is too funny to be depressing, too gritty to be a comedy, and much too
light to be taken seriously.
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