Asian cinema is developing rapidly and it has always been in the spotlight of the cinema. In this article, we will review one of the most notable representatives called The Conman.
King (Andy Lau) is one of the best card cheaters that were born. He is constantly improving and is almost ready to challenge the best player – Macau Mon (Jack Kao), but in the ongoing game is caught in a scam. Defending himself, he kills his opponent and is sentenced to five years in prison. His wife and unborn child are lost during this time, and when King finally goes free, he decides to complete what he did not have time for, and with the help of the disciple dragon (Nick Cheung) and his sister (Athena Chu) return to the big game.
Wong Jing, for all the commercial nature of his movies, did a lot for Hong Kong cinema, giving it some completely new directions and genres – erotic thrillers, horror films “new model”, and, among other things, movies about gambling, which began with his God of Gamblers (1989). It is a pity that this man is not familiar with the sense of proportion and, once having come upon a gold mine, he will not back down from it until he sucks everything to the last drop. Having exhausted the stock of his tricks by the mid-90s, Wong Jing for a while left the theme of card games, but, as it turns out, only to be at the end of the 90s with new forces he once again directs a new movie.
The Conman is not as bad as it may seem, judging solely for the reasons and history of the birth of this film. Yes, of course, it is a 100% commercial movie, which has no other purpose but to bring its creators some more money, but, in the end, if it is a well-made money-squeezer, why not? You have to have fun somehow. Another thing is that if earlier Wong Jing just repeated the old arrangements, changing from film to film only the background behind the characters, here he decided to expand the boundaries of the genre, which obviously should be left alone.
Despite the fact this movie was created for an Asian audience, it was heavily enjoyed by Europeans as well, especially in countries where gambling is a daily part of life. It may be surprising to find out but the movie actually blew up in the Nordics. Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, and even the Finns were all over this movie.
Based on the information gathered from Gratis-spinn.com, a website created by Nordic gambling enthusiasts, things got so popular that even the government-controlled casinos started to either stream the movie on in-door monitors or would try to somehow mimic its design for their gambling floors. It didn’t last long and didn’t really work, but the effort itself tells us about the popularity.
Now let’s return to the movie. The first half, as they say, did not foreshadow anything. It is quite a traditional development of history, in which the King, as usual in such a movie, gets to the hospital, becomes crippled (in this case – begins to see the world in black and white), but, acquainted with a small loser, demonstrates his skills. There’s nothing to complain about, except for non-originality: Nick Cheung plays very fervently, Andy Lau turned out particularly lively, Afena Chu playfully claps huge eyes, and the camera work and the general look of the movie at a professional level is already good. But the further into the forest, the third superfluous, and gradually Wong Jing hesitantly begins to try the boundaries allowed.
The first to see excessive violence is the first to come to the eye. The King’s ex-wife is raped, his child (and so already crippled to be sorry for it) falls down the stairs, falling into a coma afterward, and blood and snot of constantly beaten heroes pours especially much. Everyone understands that this is a necessary evil – so Wong Jing understands the drama.
But in the final game, Wong Jing surpasses himself. The fact that in addition to the standard card game (this time, however, it is not poker, and some “Big Deuce”, in the rules of which the man from the outside is not possible to understand) in parallel is a football match between Brazil and France, on which the heroes bet the main money. This match is periodically replaced by “fake” inserts, in which the wax-covered Nick Cheung in a bald wig pretends to be Ronaldo. It looks ridiculous and, most importantly, inappropriate in this rather rigid story, and Wong Jing himself in a curly wig, playing the director of this show, is especially annoying. Because of the unexpectedly cut interest in comedy suffers card game, in which Andy Lau, before that every five minutes repeated that, if not to cheat, a win is impossible, shamefully forgets about his own words. Against this background, even the standard and rather a stupid denouement (which left many lines unfinished and unexplained) looks like a regularity.
Even though there are many details in the movie that require criticism in total I think that this movie deserves to be watched. Asian cinematography has its own specific features which differ it from Hollywood or European cinema. One of the most notable examples we have most recently is Parasite, which conquered Hollywood and became the best movie at the Academy Awards.
