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 ack in the ‘80s and ‘90s, you could walk into a Hong
Kong video store and walk out with a dozen movies like David Lam’s First
Shot. You could go back the very next day and come out with another dozen,
all-new films in the same genre. The point is, movies like First Shot are
a dime a dozen back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and Hong Kong was producing them
with assembly line efficiency. For the most part, the acting in these films were
poor, the directions just barely competent, and the writings uninspired.
First Shot stars Ti Lung as an honest cop name Wong
who discovers, much to his detriment, that being an honest cop in Hong Kong is
not a good idea. After he leads a raid on a drug dealer protected by a top crime
lord name Faucet (Waise Lee), Wong gets a bullet in the back of the head for his
troubles. Wong proves to be resilient and instead of dying, he recovers a year
later even more determined than ever to take the corruption out of the Hong Kong
police department. But that’s easier said than done, as it seems everyone
in said Hong Kong police department is crooked. When Wong is recruited by Annie
Ma (Maggie Cheung), an assistant to the new Hong Kong Governor, he sets up a
small, elite group of men to take on the corruption…
First of all, First Shot is a remake of Brian De
Palma’s The Untouchables, starring Kevin Costner and Sean Connery, who
won an Oscar for his performance. Director Lam and his writers are not concern
with doing anything original here, as First Shot is almost a plot-by-plot
and scene-by-scene translation of De Palma’s film. Some of the characters here
are amalgamation of multiple characters from De Palma’s version, but most are
straight interpretations.
Waise Lee’s Faucet, for example, is a carbon copy of
Robert De Niro’s Al Capone, and Wong is a combination of Kevin Costner’s
Elliot Ness and Sean Connery’s Jim Malone. Lam must have been on a tight
schedule because instead of doing a period piece and going all the way back to
the 1930s like De Palma did, Lam only goes back as far as 1973. I’ve only seen
De Palma’s The Untouchables
a few times, but I can say with reasonable
accuracy that nearly 80% of First Shot is unoriginal material.
Unoriginal filmmaking aside, First Shot suffers
greatly from shoddy writing. Besides the inspired scenes taken directly from De
Palma’s films – such as when Wong recruits his foot soldiers straight out of
the police Academy to ensure they haven’t been corrupted yet – the
“original” concepts in First Shot are downright lazy. For example,
the characters of the crooked cops are indistinguishable from one another, but
that hardly matters since all of them are corrupted and seems unconcern
with flashing around their “corruptness” to anyone who asks. The cops are so
brazen in their corrupt nature that they become cartoon figures with “evil”
signs flashing on their foreheads. There’s no subtlety to be found here.
Maggie Cheung (In
the Mood for Love) is grossly out of place and looks like she’d rather be
somewhere else. The usually flashy Simon Yam plays a flashy and crooked cop who
turns a new leaf and joins Wong’s “untouchables.” Brief scenes between Yam
and Cheung’s characters are easily the movie’s bright spots, since The Untouchables
was devoid of romance, and the romance here was a nice
addition. Ti Lung, a personal fan favorite, really has no idea if he’s playing
a tough guy or if he’s in a comedy, so he goes back and forth without much
conviction.
Waise Lee’s Faucet is another plus, as the character is so
cavalier in his “evilness” that the movie is most entertaining when he’s
onscreen. Bobby Yip has the unenviable role of Faucet’s assassin -- credited
as “Ugly Assassin” -- who is of course a translation of Frank Nitti, Al
Capone’s enforcer. In a stroke of originality (*tongue firmly in cheek*)
director David Lam puts the Ugly Assassin in all-black. (As most people know,
Frank Nitti was known for his all-white wardrobe.)
There really isn’t much else to say about First Shot.
Direction by David Lam is competent, although the film becomes almost
unwatchable towards the end when Wong storms Faucet’s hideout to ensure an
unnecessary bloody shootout. The sequence is plague with bad filmstock, and as a
result the movie’s colors kept changing. But that’s not much of a complaint,
since anyone who has seen his or her share of bad Hong Kong films produced in
the ‘80s and ‘90s know all about bad filmstock.
If you happen to like this sort of cop drama, my suggestion
is to pick up Brian De Palma’s 1987 version (which was itself based on a
popular TV cop show of the same name from the ‘50s). That one actually won a
few Oscars, is considered one of Brian De Palma’s best work, and Sean
Connery’s performance is pure genius. De Palma’s film also features an
intense gunfight toward the end on a staircase that involves gunmen, Ness, and a
runaway baby carriage. It’s a true nail-biter of a scene.
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