By Daniel Rutledge
Stool Pigeon is a hard-hitting crime drama set on the mean streets of Kowloon, focusing on the story of Ghost Jr, an ex-con turned police informant. It's brilliant film the likes of which Hollywood hasn't delivered since The Departed.
Ghost Jr (Nicholas Tse) is recruited by Police Inspector Don Lee (Nick Cheung), shortly after another of his informants is almost hacked to death by the gangsters he betrayed. With very limited career options following his prison release and his sister forced into prostitution to pay off their deceased father's debt to the mob, Ghost Jr reluctantly becomes Lee's mole in a dangerous heist.
The film is directed Dante Lam and portrays informants as being forced into their roles by police before having the rewards promised to them increasingly diminished. If they complain or try to quit, the police can simply threaten to expose them, or arrest them, or both.
Lee struggles with the fact that he is putting his informants at grave risk, especially as his boss demands further budget cuts and even harsher treatment of them. Lee's own personal problems - which are deadly serious - are not fleshed out as well as Ghost Jr's, although they certainly contribute to making the film's climax more highly effective.
There are some brilliant car chase sequences in the film, including a Fast and Furious style illegal street race. These are filmed particularly well and petrolheads will get a kick out of them. Action buffs are sure to enjoy the numerous gun, blade and fist battles, although they are all fairly serious in tone, rather than fun. The bloody final fight takes place in an abandoned school is particularly brutal.
What I really like about this movie is how tight it is. Despite the complexity of the relationship between the two central male characters, the storyline is a simple, straight up crime drama, reminiscent of a lot of '90s Hong Kong cinema.
The Stool Pigeon has a dirty, gritty look and feel, the performances are all solid, the action is very impressively staged and it's a well-paced, engaging story. I highly recommend it.
For session times and more
information, visit the Hong Kong
Festival New Zealand website.
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