Movie Review: The Last Tycoon/大上海

New: Video review!!!Been a while, huh?

I’ve become much more… selective in my viewing lately, for personal as well as logical reasons.

My aptitude (and appetite) for cinematic self-flagellation has waned considerably, and I am, dare I say it, happier for it.

Not happy, mind you, just happier.

For many people, watching a Wong Jing film would constitute cinematic self-flagellation. But for me, it is ( almost) always a pleasant experience, and occasionally a sublime one.

So too is knowing that the director makes absolutely no pretense about his work and would gladly admit to the crassly commercial, exploitative nature of his films as well as their dearth of artistic merit, much less aspiration.

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If there’s a short bus to film school, Wong Jing would be driving it.

 

Mmmm-hmm.

This means that Wong Jing movies can (almost) always be forgiven for their flaws, and their strengths will be very pleasant surprises.

What I mean to say is that Wong Jing movies are refreshing if only because so many of his contemporaries are, by comparison, seemingly full of themselves while their films are empty of nearly anything redeeming.  

At least he’s giving Michele Reis’ stunt double some work…

When Wong Jing movies have plot holes big enough to sail an American aircraft carrier (not a yard-sale Ukranian one) through them, it’s an expected development.

When they have some of the most ham-fisted, overacted dialog in cinematic history, it’s not a surprise.

When Wong Jing shows us jingoism so far beyond pedantic that it really should be called pediatric, I’m not going to find it nearly as disappointing/infuriating as I do when someone like Zhang Yimou does it.

Because clumsy jingoism is really the only thing those two directorsshould have in common.

Besides, as ‘lousy’ as Wong Jing’s films are, they make money, and that’s the important thing.

Proof positive it’s more important than looks.

The reason we’ve had 30 years of his ‘art’ is because people have paid to see it.

And sometimes it’s easy to see why.

The Last Tycoon/大上海 charts the rise of  Chen Daqi, who is loosely based on real-life gangster Du Yuesheng, aka “Big-Eared” Du.

Probably shouldn’t laugh.

He is played alternately by Huang Xiaoming as the younger version:

“我是不是更帥嗎？”

and Chow Yun Fat as the elder incarnation:

“My ears arenot that big!”

 Big-Eared Du essentially ran Shanghai in partnership with “Pockmarked” Huang Jinrong:

That’s the grumpiest opium addict I’ve ever seen.

He is the obvious model for Sammo Hung’s character.

That’s thefattest opium addict I’ve ever seen.

Although not much enforced, an official ban on writing about or otherwise representing Du Yuesheng is still in effect in China for fear of encouraging criminality.

You mean that wasn’t heroin, it was milk powder?

So in order to ensure (!) China-friendliness here, we can’t call the characters gangsters, so they become tycoons.

Which is fitting, since Hong Kong’s tycoons often seem more than a little gangster-ish. So let’s put on our red-colored glasses and ignore the idea that calling Big-Eared Du a tycoon is a lot like calling Adolf Hitler a public speaker.

What a boon for Wong Jing; he can’t be too accurate in his story.

Well, it’s not like he was at any risk of doing so anyway. 

Not only does that give him a lot of protection from criticism, it actually supports/perpetuates China-friendly handling of history in film.

That’s why the ascendant Chen Daqi can righteously proclaim that under his rule, there will be no drugs, prostitution or gambling in the French Concession.

Big-Eared Du said the same thing, but added “… except mine.”

See how that works? SARFT FTW!

But even with only a tenuous relationship to history and truth, the story is (mostly) cohesive, and like (almost) all of Wong’s films moves briskly along.

The sets and costumes are convincing at the least, and the production is, by local standards, downright lavish.

I found myself really caught up by the sets and wardrobe, which managed to re-create early 20th-century Shanghai pretty well and looked very nice.

When you know that Wong Jing will cut any and all available corners so drastically as to render anything square a circle, it becomes somehow that much more impressive.

I saw the Cantonese version, so many of the actors were dubbed, but it didn’t bother me.

It would have been nice to have some linguistic verisimilitude and have everyone dubbed in period-correct Shanghainese, but let’s remember who made this movie.  

“哈哈哈哈哈,電影-同性戀!”

This film is not without its share of flaws both major and minor. But as I note, the beauty of Wong Jing films is that when they inevitably (albeit briefly) plunge three fathoms below Suck, you can just smile, because this is part of Wong Jing’s modus operandi.

If his films weren’t bad they wouldn’t be Wong Jing films.

The film does not unfold; it assails you with a nearly non-stop barrage of images, sounds and events that have all the subtlety and grace of a 19th-century surgeon with epilepsy  and Parkinson’s disease.

“包皮環切術! 五元!”

But that’s the joy of it.

Wong shamelessly (actually, ‘wong jing’ means shameless in Chinese) recycles both Chow Yun Fat and John Woo to a degree that would embarrass even Quentin Tarantino; a shootout in a church comes off as gleeful, tawdry appropriation much more than homage.

Even so, I have to admit that when I see Chow Yun Fat in a white suit and holding a pistol, it makes me achingly nostalgic.

I’m not a woman, but I admit I got a little moist.

I mean my eyes, you pack of savages.

Wong Jing callously exploits our nostalgia, but you know what? I don’t care! I liked it!

I wish he’d painstakingly exploit it all the time; it would certainly improve local cinema output, I can tell you that.

Sammo Hung has proven to be a pretty good actor at times, and he does a commendable job working with what little opportunity he gets in The Last Tycoon/大上海.

It is interesting and fun to see him playing a bad guy (historically speaking) and being in situations we do not often see him in.

大拉皮條? 巨大的拉皮條的！

He spends a disturbing amount of time topless in this film, but it (mostly) makes narrative sense, so I could (mostly) overlook it.

“You have the biggest t*ts in this movie!”

“And you made Dragonball: Evolution, so you can go f@#$ yourself!” 

Francis Ng provides a very impressive turn as a KMT official whose hands are so deep into crime he needs to wear short-sleeved shirts. He is by turns menacing, paternal, fatalistic and pragmatic.

And he looks great in a uniform, ladies.

If anyone can be said to have no reason to be ashamed of their part in this film, it’s him.

And if you can be in a Wong Jing movie without shame, you’ve very lucky. Or retarded.

Huang Xiaoming plays his role well, and I imagine he had some fun essentially imitating Chow Yun Fat.

See?

There are more than a few blatant ‘eye-candy’ moments that are obviously meant to pander to (and benefit from) Huang’s large (mostly) female fan base, but… it’s a Wong Jing film.

Pandering is what he does.

And he does it really, really well. 

I’m sure her acting skills got her the role. 

Which is why an innocent romantic moment that turns into what some might call low-level sexual assault is intended to be seen as romantic.

I’ve never had that happen to me during a foot massage. Thank Christ.

It makes sense, because just like many other Wong Jing films,  The Last Tycoon/大上海 ‘s women serve as distractions and set dressing and precious little else.  

Looks like someone’s taken philtre…

That’s not to say that the women here don’t do a good job. They’re just so marginal to the story that it’s hard to get any feel for their characters.

“撫弄自己的性格，西方的色狼…”

Seriously (?), most of them do a very good job filling out roles that are even slimmer than they are.

And to be honest, I am unfamiliar with their names and image-searching doesn’t really help me nail down who played whom, so in the interest of fairness and avoidance of error, I will refrain from listing the actresses and the characters they played. But let me reiterate they all did a good job.

One actor who really impressed me was Gao Hu as Chen Daqi’s bodyguard. It’s hard to explain why, except to say that he really sold me on his character.

Now if I could just figure out why he reminds me of Gary Oldman.

These characters all interact in a violent miasma of crime, nationalism, love, and guns.

It’s basically an Irish Catholic Christmas movie.

As the story moves forward, we get into what seems now to be the requisite segment showing us how evil and brutal and evil [sic] Japan was during WWII (and, by extension, ever since).  

Even black cats can kill Japanese mice. Because those Japs are rats!

But here again, Wong’s heavy hand manages to leaven what I would otherwise find as an infuriating nod to the Chinese government’s nearly obsessive need to demonize Japan; the portrayals and events are so poorly presented, over-acted, and histrionically overwrought that they are laughable.

And I enjoy laughing.

Probably because I do it so f@#$ing rarely.

I really enjoyed The Last Tycoon/大上海.

“ **He likes it!  He likes it!”**

I’d recommend seeing it on a big screen if you can, because it’s worth it. It’s merits and its flaws are amplified, but that’s part of the experience.

It’s not a great movie by any stretch, but it’s great fun, and that’s really all we should reasonably ask of Wong Jing.

In this case at least, we got what we asked for, and actually quite a bit more in the bargain.

 

 

Honestly, now I’m kinda worried that this film is going to jinx Wong’s next release, Young & Dangerous Reloaded.

I sure hope not.

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Postscrīpt: I want to send a special thanks to Kevin Ma, a friend who wrote the subtitles for  The Last Tycoon/大上海.  

I am certain he went through something that has happened to me too (though I wasn’t writing subtitles):

You do your best work, hand it in, and someone, somewhere, who may have had a hand in the original, apparently feels that they will ‘lose face’ because of your corrections and therefore re-/un-corrects them.

I know Kevin; he would never have written that the two tycoons were donating ‘fighter jets’ in 1937.

But I did kinda think he was throwing me a dope fiend Easter egg when someone said that “our work will be in vein.”

Next round of Dynasty Shooters is on me, dog.

“我看不懂英文。什麼是’K-I-C-K-M-E’嗎?”