Turning Point 2 Laughing Gor Returns | Laughing Gor之潛罪犯 [ Movie Review ] ★★★

Laughing Gor is quite a "cultural" phenomenon in the Hong Kong entertainment scene. This undercover cop character was a supporting role in a Hong Kong TVB television police drama E.U (Emergency Unit - which was already a third installment to The Academy series). While undercover cops characters and angle had been done numerous times in Hong Kong films and tv series, Laughing Gor managed to gain so much popularity until the character / actor got a movie and drama series spin off.

First was the movie Turning Point that was supposedly meant to chronicle the Laughing Gor's times before the events in E.U. However it wasn't a faithful prequel as there are a few events that contradict with what happened in the television series.

TVB "corrected" those problems by making another spin off television series called Lives of Omission. This new television series became a replacement series that correct the contradiction between E.U and Turning Point. After Lives of Omission, it seems that Laughing Gor is still pretty much sought after and that why there's Turning Point 2 Laughing Gor Returns ( Laughing Gor之潛罪犯 ), a movie that directly ties in with events that occurred in Lives of Omission.

Turning Point 2 starts off with Laughing Gor (Michael Tse) being sentenced to life imprisonment for killing So (Bosco Wong). But for Hong Kong's most beloved undercover cop, it's never that simple. It turned out that Laughing Gor is in a new mission to gather more information on Tai Chit (Chapman To) a former Narcotics Bureau Station Sergeant who admitted to corruption but refused to reveal the identity of his accomplice.

Soon afterwards, a trained psychologist Professor Fok (Francis Ng) is imprisoned for drug dealings. The mysterious Professor is not a simple man. As soon as his jail term starts, he demonstrated his ability in analyzing people and manipulating people's mind. Laughing Gor soon realized that the Professor is interested in Tai Chit too. To add on to his dubious character, Laughing Gor also noticed that So's wife, Paris (Kate Tse) has been visiting Professor Fok and they are in a strange loving relationship.

What is Tai Chit withholding? Who is this mysterious Professor Fok and what is he up to? Why is Paris hooking up with the Professor when she should still be in the mourning for her dead husband. It all adds up to a big confrontation with the new head of police, the drug lord of the golden triangle and a diabolical plan to change the system.

There are a couple of things that I noticed about Turning Point 2 Laughing Gor Returns. The first and foremost would be that this movie relies heavily on the events in Lives of Omission and how it affected characters like So and Paris. Even though there's flashbacks to the last few episodes of Lives of Omission, it can get rather disconnecting. If it's impossible to access the television series, at least try to read up with Wiki page on it.
 
The second thing would be that Turning Point 2 played out like the third installment of Infernal Affairs. In order to move on, it adds new characters in by writing new background stories that wasn't established in The Omission of Life. In a way, it's a major retcon to what's been established, particularly to Laughing Gor killing So at the end of Lives of Omission. Some might like it and some might not. Personally, I thought it was a rather intriguing retcon and it kept me entertained throughout the show.

It's also quite strange that Michael Tse's screen time as Laughing Gor has been dramatically reduced for a lead role. It's filled with unnecessary characters like Carmen (Janice Man), Laughing Gor's handler and comedic performance of MC Jin as Officer Yeung that did very little for the story or Laughing Gor's story. It doesn't help when Michael Tse's co stars, Francis Ng, Chapman To and Kara Hui are stealing the show from the lead. It's like what Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang and Francis Ng (again) did in the first Turning Point movie, out shinning Michael Tse's performance.

In summary, I am still waiting for Michael Tse to impress me with his Laughing Gor character. I am still not getting the hype and popularity of this undercover cop. But that not to say that Turning Point 2 Laughing Gor Returns isn't without it's entertainment value. The retcon was fun to watch and the supporting cast of Francis Ng, Chapman To and Kara Hui are ever reliable in their respecting roles. Turning Point 2 comes recommended and probably highly recommended if you are a fan of Lives of Omission.


Rating: ***

SP : The Motion Picture | ＳＰ野望篇 [ Movie Review ] ★★

The Pitch

The SP here stands for Security Police and it centered around the trials and tribulation of a team of Japanese politicians bodyguards. SP first found life as a TV series (3rd Nov 2007 to 26th Jan 2008) and like many popular Japanese TV drama series these days, SP was made into 2 motion pictures (this being the first one and a second one that's likely to be heading to Singapore cinema eventually).

The most interesting aspect of this movie (for someone who have not caught the drama series) would be that this movie topped the Japanese Box Office for 3 weeks (from 30th Oct to 14th Nov 2010)* and the follow up movie SP: The Motion Picture II is currently at the top too ( 3 straight weeks from 12 Mar to 27th Mar 2011)*. It's intriguing to find out what the drawing power that this franchise got on the Japanese audience that make them come back for more.

(* Box Office Information from AsianMediaWiki.com )



The Plot

For the uninitiated, SP: The Motion Picture basically introduced a team of Japanese politician bodyguards. The focus here lies on the team leader, Soichiro Ogata (Shin'ichi Tsutsumi / Suspect X) and one of the member Kaoru Inoue (Junichi Okada). Inoue stood out from the rest with his special "ESP" abilities to remember stuff, detect traps and even premonition. Needless to say, as the protagonist, he would go above and beyond the call of duty.

The plot thickens when Secretary General Kunio Date (Teruyuki Kagawa / 20th Century Boys series) gathered a group of politicians from various departments for a meeting to create crisis that would unite the Japanese citizen. Among the group, Ogata been tasked to carry out the plan and attempted to recruit Inoue for the sinister cause.

It's not hard to figure out how would the hero react to such invitation. Before he got time to ponder more about Ogata's unexplained cause, an emergency occurred and his team had been tasked to protect another Secretary who was making his way to the Prime Minister house. Let's just say that it won't be an easy mission for the hero and his team mates.
  
The Perspective

As someone who going into this movie without any knowledge of what happened in the TV series, it's relatively easy to get up to speed. Although one might not know the significant of certain character that died in the TV series, it's easy to figure out the plot setup and characters' motivation.

This movie also focused on how the Security Police protects the various politicians from potential harms. But in a strange way, it did too much of "securing" for it's own good. The movie gets bogged down by one security mission after another. It's not only bland (just imagine following a security details around), it does nothing to advance the story and there were plenty of loopholes in their operations.

The most glaring loophole would be how the security team would choose to hand to hand combat when they have other form of weapons with them. It felt like a blatant attempt to show realistic take down that security forces might use. While the fight scenes look different from the usual exaggerated kungfu fight scenes, it felt that the security operation had been stupefied so that they can show the audience how they whack people with their bare hands.

Last but not least, Inoue was quite a boring and tedious character to follow. He got all these supernatural powers that makes him a super bodyguard. It's almost impossible to surprise him when he could see into the future or detect what's round the corner. But the power are wasted in a manner that even when he detects that something is wrong, he would usually react a moment too late. Kinda negated his special abilities most of the time and it makes one wonder why give him special powers in the first place when it doesn't do much for his character or the story.

As the first part of two movies, SP: The Motion Picture failed to entice me to catch the second movie. In fact, it felt like a telemovie that didn't deserve the cinematic treatment. It also felt like if it had remove the introduction arc (for newbies like me), the movie would probably have enough screen time to get to Secretary General Kunio Date's big sinister plan. Perhaps there's more in the TV series and folks who had watched that might appreciate this movie more but right now, it's doing nothing to interest me to the TV series or the 2nd movie.