European Premiere | In Competition
Hong Kong, 2023, 126’, Cantonese
Directed by: Felix Chong
Screenplay: Felix Chong
Cinematography (color): Anthony Pun
Editing: William Chang, Curran Pang
Production Design: Eric Lam
Music: Day Tai
Producer: Ronald Wong
Cast: Tony Leung Chiu-wai (Henry Ching), Andy Lau (Lau Kai-yuen), Charlene Choi (Carmen Cheung), Simon Yam (KK Tsang), Carlos Chan (Robert), Michael Ning (Chung Yam), Alex Fong (Kelvin), Tai Bo (Wu Ren-song), Catherine Chau (Lau Kai-yuen’s wife), Philip Keung (Musharra Hafa), Kaki Sham (Johnny), Renci Yeung (Wing), Gladys Li (receptionist), Chin Kar-lok (cop), Anita Yuen (judge)
Date of First Release in Territory: December 30th, 2023
When filming began in early 2021 on
The Goldfinger, one of Hong Kong’s most expensive films ever, the city’s movie business was mired in pandemic woes. The year before had seen local cinemas ordered shut, and over in the mainland a production shutdown had put many joint-venture projects on the skids. With its extraordinary budget of HK$350 million (41 million euros), the true-crime epic from feted
Infernal Affairs co-writer Felix Chong would offer a shakeup – a prestige project to give the home team a lift.
Released to cinemas in time for the start of this year,
The Goldfinger lives up to its promise of high-end production values. The two leads of
Infernal Affairs, actors Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau, are together again onscreen and playing off each other brilliantly, only this time with their good-guy/bad-guy roles switched. And behind the scenes, lavish design and lengthy post-production gave the film a sleek look in recreating Hong Kong of the 1970s and ’80s.
The trip to the past follows the fortunes of Henry Ching (Tony Leung), a character based on Carrian Group founder George Tan, who saw his Hong Kong business empire collapse in a corruption scandal. Ching turns up in the city in the mid-1970s and calls himself an engineer. Instead he gets involved with property developers and falls upward, starting off with a key bogus-investor role in a land deal. He sets up a company spontaneously named after his first hire, Carmen Cheung (Charlene Choi), and promptly he’s flipping properties, branching out into areas like transport, pest control and travel services, and manipulating stock prices and using shares as cash to get funding. His coup along the way is symbolically taking control of an office tower from a British conglomerate and turning a huge profit, and his office is a penthouse palace adorned with golden mirrors and statues.
Ching also finds himself under the scrutiny of Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption, which had commenced work a few years earlier with a famously rocky start. As Ching’s Carmen Century group rises, ICAC investigator Lau Kai-yuen (Andy Lau) suspects fraud and bribery. Multiple charges are laid on the cheery and enigmatic tycoon, but nothing sticks in his first trial. It’ll take a lot more persistence for Lau to bring down his target.
Having already delivered corporate-crime sagas in the
Overheard series, writer-director Chong knows a thing or two about spicing up the genre, adding a zing to scenes like stock-market trading and keeping them accessible. In
The Goldfinger, antihero Ching becomes a charismatic and mysterious rogue, enjoying his climb up Hong Kong’s social ranks and becoming a business celebrity whom investors put their faith in. But aside from covering the expected backroom deals and threats, Chong flings in murder, high-level international connections, and, most outrageous, an explosive battle scene in the Golden Triangle.
While
The Goldfinger’s portrayals of the British in the corporate world and the courts are clunky and the finale feels muted, Chong’s colonial Hong Kong tale is by and large a flamboyant epic. Just as it was with several other films looking back on shady characters in that era, from the true-crime
Trivisa to the prostitute comedy-drama
Golden Chicken, some in the cinema may feel nostalgia for a time quite unlike the current doldrums. Even in Henry Ching’s sordid tale, the city hosts a confident, glitzy and freewheeling existence with people dreaming big, no matter what the costs may be.
GUEST
Felix CHONG, director
Felix CHONG
Born in Hong Kong in 1968, Felix Chong studied film at Hong Kong Baptist University and worked in TV before joining the film industry in 1999 as a scriptwriter. Chong is best known for co-writing the popular Infernal Affairs trilogy (2002-03) and co-directing seven films with Alan Mak, including Overheard (2009) and its sequels. Chong’s first solo work as director, Once a Gangster, was released in 2010. Outside writing, producing and directing, Chong has been a Vice Chairman of the Hong Kong Film Development Council.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
2005 – Moonlight in Tokyo (co-director)
2008 – Lady Cop & Papa Crook
(co-director)
2009 – Overheard (co-director)
2010 – Once a Gangster
2011 – The Lost Bladesman
(co-director)
2011 – Overheard 2 (co-director)
2012 – The Silent War
(co-director)
2014 – Overheard 3 (co-director)
2018 – Project Gutenberg
2023 – The Goldfinger