TIFF Report: Sha Po Lang [SPL] Review
I have borne witness to what may be the rebirth of cool in Hong Kong cinema. I sit in front of a computer a changed man. Let me talk to the new generation of film geeks out there for a moment. I have watched the film that may forever hook you onto Hong Kong cinema for the rest of your lives. What John Woo's Hardboiled and The Killer did for me [and seemingly Todd and Kurt as well – no lie we all said this after last night's screening] this film I saw last night will do for you. Whether of not this turns the tide in what has been a flailing industry doesn't matter. That is irrelevant. The here and now is that Wilson Yip's SPL, Sha Po Lang, rules like freaking lords and if you thought Hong Kong cinema was dead or dying you need to pay heed to my words.
SPL stars a combo of old school icons, contemporary stars and future leaders of the new school: Sammo Hung, Simon Yap, Donnie Yen and Wu Jing. Simon portrays Detective Chan, a hard as nails cop wholly bent on bringing down crime boss Po, played by Sammo Hung. With only days before his retirement and his health failing due to a tumor in his head, Chan's man on the inside is murdered and Chan and his team attempt to frame Po for the murder. Enter Ma, Chan's replacement, played by Donnie Yen. Ma is a by the books cop but has a reputation for extreme measures to law enforcement. Ma's arrival causes tension in the group as they go about bringing their own interpretation of justice to the streets. What are they willing to do to bring Po and his gang down?
SPL is one of those rare breeds of Hong Kong films and finds the perfect balance between drama, melodrama and action. Very few have been able to do this well and find that delicate balance but Yip brings a story to the screen that exposes the full scope of human emotion in his cast. Compassion and humanity still exist beneath a grim and hard exterior as most characters in SPL are given the opportunity to love, to hurt and to rage. What it accomplishes is you connect better with the characters and it is done so well that you dare not scoff at it. And Yip's cast fires on all cylinders and deliver at every point in their growth on screen.
The action is bar none. Gone is the careful choreography and graceful moves normally associated with HK action films. Yip does away with the sweeping gestures and grand posturing. Understanding his story and his characters development leading up to each fight he knows what is appropriate and what drives each character as they fight. As Kurt said in his review, and we spoke about this last night, thank god Yip was smart enough to pull the camera back and just let the actors beat the crap out of each other. The benefit of having three of Hong Kong's greatest martial artists in your cast is that you can trust them to do it right. Clearly Yip trusts Yen, Hung and Wu with the fighting scenes [in the Q&A Yip said that he told Yen and Wu to just go at each other and by god they did]. The fighting is brutal and desperate and heck if I have seen anything more brutal and real than the fighting in the final act. By far the best fighting I have seen this year at TIFF and the best I have seen in a long, long time.
SPL is one of the best movies to ever come out of Hong Kong. What it has done is reset the bar on quality and expression in HK film that has been sorely missed since the late 90s. A couple times a year we see a brief glimmer of hope as a new HK film shines above the rest of the tripe. SPL is one of those, shining light a beacon to the rest of the industry. It begs for imitation and perhaps the industry isn't ready or able to reach the same level as SPL. But it offers itself as an inspiration for others in HK and if the industry can return to the level of quality it was at before the millennium HK can soon reclaim its position as a hotbed for international cinema.
