With Shock Wave and Love Off the Cuff, Hong Kong filmmakers are fighting for another day at the China box office
Classic over-the-top Hong Kong action film Shock Wave a surprise hit with Chinese film-goers, along with movies from Pang Ho-cheung and Peter Chan, showing Hong Kong filmmakers still have a shot at winning in China
On paper, Shock Wave bears all the hallmarks of classic Hong Kong cops-and-robbers blockbusters from the past. There’s the heroic police officer, played by Andy Lau Tak-wah, who’s ready to sacrifice himself to save the day, with naive sidekicks and a weepy girlfriend in tow. And then there’s the invariably over-the-top action sequences, the set piece being a literally explosive showdown inside the Cross Harbour Tunnel.
And then there’s the villain. Up against the courageous, righteous Hong Kong police officers is a brutal criminal from China who goes to incredible extremes in wreaking havoc in the city. Jiang Wu’s antagonist looks like a pale, simplistic and inhuman archetype light years away from the more nuanced felons who gatecrashed Hong Kong’s capitalist party in Johnny Mak Tong-hung’s seminal 1984 crime thriller Long Arm of the Law .
Given the festering antipathy between people from China and Hong Kong in recent years, director Herman Yau Lai-to’s choice of antagonist would seem bound to raise hackles up north. Surprisingly, audiences in China have chosen to swallow the whole thing with glee and perhaps indifference.
Released in China on April 28, Shock Wave was the breakout hit there during the May Day holidays.
Having outperformed Leste Chen Zhengdao’s psychological thriller Battle of Memories – which boasts a stellar cast of Huang Bo, Xu Jinglei and Du Yihong – Yau’s film became the top-grossing Chinese-language title of the week, having already taken 265.8 million yuan (HK$300 million, US$38.5 million) by Wednesday.
