Paul Magne Haakonsen
For a movie that has been put together by three of the heavyweight directors of Hong Kong cinema, you would expect nothing short of a masterpiece to be the end result. However, that was not really the case with "Triangle".Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that "Triangle" is a bad or boring movie, far from it actually. The storyline in the movie is good and well put together, although it just tended to drag on in long sequences. There are far better movies available from the Hong Kong cinema compared to this one.Aside from the three directors, then "Triangle" does have some rather good and established Hong Kong actors to the cast list; Louis Koo and Simon Yam really did carry the movie quite nicely.There is a lot of action in the movie, which works out quite well, however the last part of the movie that takes place in a small outdoors food vendor in the nature (I assume this is somewhere in the New Territories) tended to become a little too much, especially because there was some comedy and humor attended to throw into that scene, which just ended up making the scene worse."Triangle" is a solid enough movie with good performances, however, I had just initially expected something extraordinary to come from a collaboration between Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To.
dumsumdumfai
dug this up on my piles of DVDS during reorganizing(i.e. throwing things out for donation) and can't remember a thing (maybe it's just me ) on this one so I watched it again.This has kind of rough beginning. There is no setup beginning, just jumps right into 3 main leads in a bar .. and another guy giving them a small gold plate.Then the slow review happens. Who is with whom, has what background, is scheming behind who's back to do what... all to get some money which everyone is short of.And the story spirals to a frenzy outside a rural area, where protagonists, villains, third party and cops all show up for a stand-off/showdown. I was expecting a more well choreographed ending .. but it seems the producers went for something more symbolic then anything. It works but didn't release the tension for me.There was few, very few funny moments but those are really good.
DICK STEEL
The much awaited Hong Kong movie Triangle has finally hit our shores. It's an interesting project, given that 3 HK directors - Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To - are combining forces to tell a story in the "exquisite corpse" style, where each one takes over from where the other left off, each injecting their own narrative style and spin to the characters and story. It's friendly one-upmanship between the directors in their bout to demonstrate their innovativeness, spontaneity and resourcefulness, but what comes through is clearly a mixed bag, expectedly so since you have three distinct creative inputs.Does it come across as confusing? You bet, at least for the first third when Tsui creates the characters and the premise. I thought Tsui had tried to bite off more than he can chew. Then again, being the one off the starting blocks, he might be trying to provide as many possibilities and directions that the narrative can choose to adopt and examine in depth or drop altogether. And he doesn't get involved in the chewing anyway, as that's left to Ringo Lam to digest, and Johnnie To to wrap up. Tsui creates a trio who are hard pressed for cash. In Mok's (Chinese actor Sun Hong Lei) antique shop, Fai (Louis Koo) proposes to Sam (Simon Yam) about a heist, which requires them to utilize the latter's driving skills. A stranger appears and provides them an ancient coin, and a puzzle on a website which directs them to treasure (which includes lingerie!) underneath a government legislative building.Simple enough? Yes, until we also get thrown many other subplots, some of which involves the original heist gone awry because of Sam's backing out, Sam's wife Ling (Kelly Lin) having an affair with corrupt cop Wen (Lam Ka Tung), Fai being under Wen's payroll and their plot within a plot in the original heist to bump Sam off, so that the adulterous couple can lead a new life, gangland members screwball involvement in the whole scheme of things, and the list goes on. Ideas get thrown into the mix and tossed about, and you can almost hear Tsui's cheeky snickering at how Lam and To will be able to sieve through the mess.But fret not, I believe Lam had managed to, given that he closed most of the open threads and decided quite cleverly, to focus on the individual motivations involving a love "Triangle", and examined some of the characters in depth. This created a much needed and deserved pause for your brain to filter through the noise Tsui had caused, and made the narrative henceforth more manageable, and it did have some rather creative scenes of violence. Fans of Ringo Lam will have known of his earlier movie City On Fire, which Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs was widely acknowledged to be inspired from. And in Lam's third of the movie, he provides a throwback to Reservoir Dogs, coming full circle with a scene within a warehouse, a character in bondage, everyone else coming over for their piece of the action, with music played over a turntable.So what's left of Johnnie To to do? He cleared the mess, literally. I thought he provided the best possible last arc for what had transpired over the last hour, with shades from the Election movie (the hunt for an artifact) and a very, very complicated setup to Exiled styled Mexican stand-offs, together with themes of brotherhood, loyalty and honour all summed up beautifully. And I thought he just had to throw in Lam Suet for comedic purposes to provide one last, but short, complication to up the ante that he too can make things complex! To does what To does best, and by the time the credits roll, you'll be pondering over what had transpired, and no doubt, I believe the talking point will be its ending.All in all, Triangle proved to be an enjoyable ride. Just endure the messy start to get to the meat, before lasting the final sprint to the finishing line where you'll get that rewarding yarn. I'm not sure if the three directors will collaborate again, maybe they should, but this time to rearrange the order for a different film, and if they're at it, why not make it a trilogy to complete the loop so that everyone has a chance to begin, sustain, and close.
faifai0714
Finally i have seen Triangle. It has all the elements of a film noir ( dark lighting/unhappy couple/the femme fatale/double crossing/unsympathetic characters) and so forth) plus the style of all three directors. The first part is Tsui Hark's direction. There's nothing really interesting in this part it's just the setup of the story, but the fast/jump cuts and dialogues is obviously Tsui's style. The second part, directed by Ringo Lam, reveals the sophisticated emotions of the characters, the fun part is that Ringo Lam is pretty much playing with the character's minds and also the audience's minds and expectations. The final part is directed by Johnnie To. It has all the elements of a Johnnie To action sequence: all the characters with different intentions meet each other just like in PTU and they end up killing each other.Overall it has been a great experience to see all the three directors putting their own style in three different parts of the movie. But if you ask me who owns the movie I would say Johnnie To because since this movie is produced by his company and his production team, it has Johnnie To's style all over it. Tsui and Ringo are there for the ride. It's just like in Sin City where Tarantino directs a scene from the movie but overall the movie has Rodriguez's style all over it.
