Best known today as the film on which John Woo based his 1986 classic A Better Tomorrow, Patrick Lung Kong’s importance as a director is made clear with Story of a Discharged Prisoner. The title character is Lee Cheuk-hong (Patrick Tse Yin), a safecracking ace released on probation after 15 years in prison. Once he’s out, going straight is no simple task: Lee can’t return home (his arrest was kept secret from his brother) and reform is hard going in mid-’60s Hong Kong.
Nightclub owner and gang boss One-Eye Jack knows Lee’s reputation and would dearly like to use his services. But Lee wants nothing of it, choosing instead to find legit work. Unimpressed, the crime boss resorts to pressure tactics to bring Lee into his service, informing employers about his past and speaking to his brother. And the police are no help, with one inspector hounding Lee for refusing to become an informant. With few willing to support him, Lee struggles to find his footing in society.
An initial credit sequence featuring a masked, catsuit-clad lady slinking round a glittery globe is as kitsch as Story Of A Discharged Prisoner gets. Presented in black and white, Story Of A Discharged Prisoner rarely deviates from its key theme and entertains with a catchy proto-thriller plot and distinguished players. The theme of reform is unmistakable: the compassionate narrative suggests that it’s easier for ex-prisoners to return to crime than it is to head down the straight and narrow. Only through institutions like the Hong Kong Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society, which Lee eventually enters, is there hope of aid and rehabilitation.
As an action-melodrama, Lung’s picture is just as direct. Fight scenes, choreographed by Chan Lun-suen and Lau Kar-wing, are ahead of their time with roving camerawork and bruising moves.
Cantonese-cinema idols Tse and Patsy Kar Ling, who plays the reform society’s head, are at the top of their game alongsdide top character actors like the late screen villain Sek Kin and Wong Hak, playing the crippled beggar who sees the brighter side of life. The filmmakers also focus on the city itself: construction sites, reclamation areas and squatter villages are as common as modern high-rise blocks, and there’s mention of how much the territory has changed during Lee’s jail time. With touches like these, Story Of A Discharged Prisoner is a fascinating picture of Hong Kong’s growth and social setting more than four decades ago.
Tim Youngs