Moving Targets

Year:2004
Director:Wong Jing
Cast:Nicholas Tse Ting-Fung, Edison Chen, Simon Yam Tat-Wah, Gillian Chung Yun-Tung, Roy Chow Wing-Hung, Wu An, Shu Qao, Michelle Mai Sheut, Ken Tong Chun-Yip, Lam Suet, David Lee Wai-Seung, Wan Chi-Keung, Samuel Leung Cheuk-Moon, Roderick Lam Chung-Kei
Description:
Wong
Jing raids TVB's vaults for Moving Targets,
a 2004 film update of the popular Police Cadet
serials from the 1980s. The original show starred
Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Lau Ching-Wan, Maggie Cheung
and Carina Lau, among others, and was about the soap
opera lives of police cadets and their journey from
lowly innocence to eventual destiny. Well, throw all
that out for Moving Targets. As a ninety-minute
exercise in commercial filmmaking, Moving Targets
eschews most of the show's defining characteristics
and substitutes hot young stars and popular current
themes. The result is a passably involving, though
questionably good action drama that plays like Gen-X
Cops meets Infernal Affairs. And this much
is obvious: none of these hot young stars can hold
a candle to their eighties counterparts.
Nicholas Tse is Cheung
Wai-Kit, an incredibly handsome young cop whose physical
beauty is only matched by his best bud and colleague,
Fit . Both guys have other things in
common: they're overprotective of their mothers to
the point of distraction, and both have something
to do with bookish, sweet Wing , who
loves Kit and is loved by Fit. Kit has no time for
hooking up anyway, since he's obsessed with bringing
down his wayward father Cheung Tit-Man ,
who once upon a time shot at his wife , and has since been absent from any and all
family gatherings. Kit initially starts under Cheung
Tit-Man, but gets his shot to stick it to his old
man when ICAC
officer Nicole offers him a job with her
squad. Since his dad is apparently involved in some
murky dealings, the opportunity to nail him is appealing
to Kit.
But for Kit to transfer
to ICAC, it involves leaving buddies Fit, Cheun , and Ho behind. That's not a big deal
for Cheun and Ho, because both are totally peripheral
characters who seem to be in the film for the following
possible reasons: A) eye candy, B) comedy relief,
C) appeal to Taiwan or Mainland investors, or D) cannon
fodder. It's a big deal for Fit, though, who could
use his buddy's support. Just as Nicole launches a
stationwide molehunt ,
Fit is drawn into potential shady dealings with evil
drug dealer Big Bryan . Using Fit's mom
and her dopey boyfriend Fat Seven , Big Bryan tries
to coerce Fit to the dark side. Despite Fit's seemingly
righteous ways, Big Bryan may have some dirt on the
kid. If Fit gives in to Big Bryan's bullying, then
he may be on a collision course for conflict with
Kit. Will friend oppose friend, or will Kit and Fit
band together to rout the bad guys like the Gen-X-Y-Z
Cops that they are? And will Gillian Chung do anything
in Moving Targets besides appear every now
and then to pout and/or look adorable?
Wong Jing assembles
a who's who of hot EEG popstars for his Moving
Targets cast, and gets decent acting from them.
While he's not Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Nicholas Tse is
believably intense and emotional as Cheung Wai-Kit.
Likewise, Edison Chen is no Lau Ching-Wan, but he
turns in a surprisingly solid performance as the morally
murky Fit. Given his unspectacular but decent work
in both Moving Targets and Jiang Hu,
it looks like Chen could escape his much-maligned
"I cannot act" pigeonholing and become a
dependable second banana player. It also goes without
saying that Gillian Chung is no Maggie Cheung, but
her lack of anything besides flower vase duty in Moving
Targets is hardly her fault. Ken Tong exudes hissable
sliminess as Big Bryan, and the rest of the cast is
uniformly unobtrusive if not interesting. However,
everyone in the film is absolutely destroyed by Simon
Yam, who brings smoldering low-key gravity to his
role as Cheung Tit-Man. Whenever Yam is on the screen,
his presence knocks the crap out of his co-stars,
even if he isn't doing anything.
However, even though
the acting is reasonably solid, the story and direction
fall a few notches short. A lot happens in Moving
Targets, but it's all squeezed into a ninety-minute
sprint of quick drama and only mildly-developed conflicts.
Wong Jing pays homage to his TVB inspiration by giving
the film some minor backstory, but the character flashbacks
seem to be there only to get Gillian Chung into the
pigtails-and-glasses look which was Maggie Cheung's
trademark on Police Cadet. Also, many of the
relationships are only glossed over, and Fit's flirtation
with the dark side is woefully underdeveloped. Wong
Jing creates some complex situations, but the way
his characters act seems more illogical than anything
else. Also, much of the plot seems driven by the hellaciously
lame police force, who either shaft people with their
stupidity, or resign their own ranks to poor fates
because of moronic bureaucracy. Wong Jing does move
things along efficiently, but as usual his direction
is colorless, and without any consistency of character
or tone. He also resorts to really obnoxious "tricks",
including split-screens, and the occasional MTV-influenced
camera move, which feel more jarring than effective.
On the whole, Hong Kong's leading schlockmeister doesn't
ruin the film, but he isn't that much of a help either.
Moving Targets
is exactly what it feels like: a ninety-minute exercise
in commercially-made filmmaking intended for an undemanding
teen audience. For what it is, the film provides some
minor entertainment, but is hardly a film worth seeking
out. The people who will enjoy Moving Targets
are the people the film was made for: fans of Nic
Tse, Gillian Chung, or Edison Chen, and not people
who go to the movies to find challenging emotions
or surprising filmmaking. On that note, it's surprising
that the film had such a lousy box office reception,
as it does exactly what its target audience expects
it to. It would great if the financial failure of
Moving Targets was a sign of shifting audience
taste, i.e. moviegoers are tired of cookie-cutter
stuff starring a passel of not-ready-for-primetime
players. However, that's doubtful, since many of Wong
Jing's more crass - and much worse - movies like Love
is a Many Stupid Thing actually manage some minor
cash before drifting away into obscurity. Moving
Targets just seems like bad luck, as it's not
bad enough to warrant a flop, but not good enough
to be memorable. Maybe it just means that *gasp* Nic
Tse, Edison Chen, and Gillian Chung are not really
as popular as EEG would like us to believe.