Crazy N' The City

Year:2005
Director:James Yuen Sai-Sang
Cast:Eason Chan Yik-Shun, Joey Yung Tso-Yi, Francis Ng Chun-Yu, Yan Ng Yat-Yin, Chloe Chiu Shuet-Fei, Meng Zhang, Kara Hui Ying-Hung, Lam Suet, Hui Siu-Hung, Chin Kar-Lok, Alex Fong Chung-Sun, Henry Fong Ping, Sam Lee Chan-Sam, Crystal Tin Yui-Lei, Liu Kai-Chi, Daichi Harashima, Elena Kong Mei-Yi, Waise Lee Chi-Hung, Ella Koon Yun-Na
Description:
If Crazy N' The City is any indication, Hong
Kong Cinema won't be that bad in 2005. A return to that
beloved Hong Kong genre called the "Cop Soap Opera,"
Crazy N' the City manages to channel entertaining
life with some tried-and-true movie themes and something
we can only describe as "that Hong Kong feeling."
Eason Chan is Chris Chan, a beat cop whose years on
the force have reduced his once hot-blooded nature into
something only lukewarm. Chris has never used his gun
in the line of duty, and approaches his job with a weary,
cynical laziness that could easily earn him a starring
role in Kevin Smith's upcoming Clerks sequel.
To Chris, it's all just a job, and nothing more. He
cares nothing for his colleagues, hates sucking up to
superiors, and doesn't want to walk uphill unless it's
on his prescribed beat. He could be poster child for
Gen-X slackers everywhere.
Enter Man Liu ,
a too-idealistic 23 year-old rookie who's looking to
matter. Man Liu is egregiously wide-eyed, and jumps
at the chance to do things like save cats, help old
ladies, and help Mainland tourists. Man Liu is a bit
of a caricature, but she serves her purpose. In the
standard formula, she's the half of the cop team that's
idealistic and young, while Chris is the cynical, frustratingly
old half. If the filmmakers followed the formula to
the letter, you could place a hefty wager on the young
cop inspiring the old cop, with their growing friendship
a catalyst for a cathartic ending where Chris exclaims,
"I'm a cop!" while pumping his fist in the
air. Also, with both Eason Chan and Joey Yung in the
leads, the potential for a Chris-Man Liu romance is
too obvious to ignore. If you drop your dollars on the
DVD thinking that's what you're going to get, nobody
would blame you.
Happily, that's not what
writer-director James Yuen does. Most notably, there
is no Chris-Man Liu romance, which probably pissed off
music company EEG , but is a welcome break from the norm for the
rest of us. Even more, Man Liu doesn't really inspire
Chris; instead, each slowly pulls the other towards
a more realistic center. Man Liu experiences minor burnout
from her too-pronounced enthusiasm, while Chris finds
a minor reawakening from the attentions of two teenage
girls who
become his biggest fans after he takes down a pervert
in front of them. This leads to teasing from his colleagues,
and a stint as their guest self-defense instructor.
Meanwhile, slightly-insane former brassiere salesman
Shing meets his pretty new neighbor , and a daring rapist/murderer starts a crime
spree in Wanchai. All this plus numerous cameos, human
interludes, minor characters, and even some death. It's
a cop film after all.
But not a normal cop film.
In the "Cop Soap Opera" genre, just as much
time is spent on the mundane and minuscule as the dire
and the deadly. In the case of Crazy N' The City,
the scales tip heavily in favor of minor character happenstance
and not primo cop stuff. Chris, Man Liu, and even Shing
undergo change in the course of their daily lives, with
each character's story serving to strengthen and support
the other. Shing, in particular, undergoes a massive
change, as his new love interest shakes him from his
shell-shocked norm into something resembling a fully-functional
human being. A series of harrowing personal setbacks
once drove Shing to the brink of suicide, and he's now
a shell of a man, talking into a broken cell phone as
if it were still two years ago. The character is a tough
sell, especially since his story arc is so patently
unrealistic, but Francis Ng helps by making Shing a
righteous, charming village idiot and not just a raving
loon. Joey Yung doesn't exactly come off as the next
Gigi Leung, but she gives Man Liu a likable, though
sometimes tiresomely cute demeanor. At the very least
Yung doesn't seem like the complete waste of an actress
she first appeared to be.
On the opposite end of
the acting spectrum, Eason Chan turns in the film's
strongest performance. Chris is a grouchy, yet likable
lout who somehow regains his sense of moral duty, and
though the change is expected and trite, Chan makes
it seem real and even earned. Chan manages to hit the
right notes, which is something to be thankful for because
otherwise Crazy N' The City appears uneven, and
even cloying. Though much of the character work is intriguing,
well-drawn stuff, when the film hits the eighty-five
minute mark, James Yuen starts to get cloying and obvious.
Would-be dramatic flourishes and inspirational music
become standard practice, which is usually the audience's
cue to start laughing in disbelief at the straight-faced
seriousness of it all. Self-conscious restraint sometimes
helps , and without it, Crazy N' The City
starts to look a little cheesy.
Then again, knocking Crazy
N' The City for getting too serious is probably
too much, as it's those emotional extremes that actually
make the film successful. Rapid transitions from endearing
comedy to pulse-pounding tension have long characterized
Hong Kong Cinema, and to the filmmakers credit, they're
able to take Crazy N' The City from slightly
disturbing farce to life-and-death drama in a credible,
and sometimes even moving fashion. Unexpected emotional
highs and lows are delivered, and though the delivery
is occasionally hackneyed, it's still enough to affect.
The rich location and attention
to both the inconsequential and the important gives
the film a likable, homey charm. There's an appreciable
local flavor to the film that enriches the characters
and makes them seem real梐nd that in itself makes
Crazy N' The City infinitely better than most
of Hong Kong cinema's recent output. The whole is still
a bit uneven, but this feels like a Hong Kong
movie - which is a rare and welcome thing indeed.