"I have a case and want to find an undercover agent, are you interested?".”
Three years and three years like that?”
In the theater, the audience burst into laughter.
The above line is from the upcoming movie "Breaking Point" on December 8.
"Breaking Point" is director Lin Chaoxian's first return to Hong Kong-style police crime films after 9 years of absence from Hong Kong films.
The beginning of the film pays homage to the classic undercover quotations of "Infernal Affairs", but you must not think that "Breaking Point" will be a common police crime film on the market.
Then you are completely wrong.
Let's feel the audience's voice after the screening:
If you have seen it, you will understand, and these viewing feelings are not exaggerated.
Due to the scale of violence and gore, "Breaking Point" is classified as a Grade III film in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong film level III is not only aimed at pornography, but also for being too bloody and violent. For example, Hong Kong's first grade III film was "Black Sun 731" directed by Mou Dunfu in the 1980s and based on the bacteriological experiments of Japan's Unit 731.
A childhood shadow film that is difficult for you to look up and watch the whole time.
Therefore, you can expect the visual tremor of watching "Breaking Point" in the mainland.
This kind of grade III film can rush to the mainland screen, and its preciousness does not need to be repeated, it is over!
The whole film is really flammable and easy**, and the scale of the action scenes is so large that my jaw drops.
At the beginning, the gangster car dragged the police, and the police were directly thrown into a pulp, and then all kinds of explosions, fires, poisoning, bomb digging, extortion, car chases in the downtown area, rooftop parkour, mud fighting, hand-to-hand combat and ...... each other
Anyway, you can smell blood through the screen.
Burst into war, and no one was spared
The main narrative line of "Breaking Point" is not complicated, mainly telling the story of the anti-narcotics chief inspector Li Zhenbang (played by Zhang Jiahui) and the undercover police officer Jiang Ming (played by William Chan) when they secretly carried out the plan to hunt down drug dealers.
The anti-drug line, gang trading line, drug-making joint line, and the story line between teenagers in the film are mainly brought together on the actor Li Zhenbang.
As a police officer, Bang Sir's motives for his actions also spread out with the layers of the storyline, extending to a triple: arresting a drug trafficking gang, cooperating with the undercover policeman Jiang Ming, turning friends into enemies, and how to rescue his son later.
William Chan, who plays the undercover policeman Jiang Ming, has changed his previous image and cut a capable round inch with rough muscles.
Jiang Ming had several shifts in the goal of desire, and every step of the way was accompanied by bloody violence.
He initially shared the same anti-narcotics goals with Bang Sir, but after exposing himself, he began to move towards a catastrophe.
Jiang Ming's mud hand-to-hand combat scenes and the chase scenes running wildly on the rooftop are all very exciting.
The villain boss Han Yang played by Tan Junyan is a peerless crazy critic with a super long standby IQ and combat effectiveness.
He has a clear goal, which escalates the ruthlessness of the battle between good and evil.
The trigger for Han Yang's burst point was the death of his second brother, who was ruthless all the way to the bottom, leaving no gaps.
For example, he did the scene of burning a team of anti-narcotics police, which was very cult and made people's scalps tingle.
For another example, Jiang Ming's state after being coerced by him to inhale a large amount of powder was very crazy and miserable.
The level of violence and gore in these passages is difficult to describe in words.
In the film, director Lin Chaoxian uses a lot of follow-up shots and shaking lenses, flexible zoom, and squeezes the characters in a narrow space to express the extreme predicament of the characters.
Burst into war, and no one was spared
The scene of Ying Xiu (played by Liang Luoshi), the mother of the drug maker profession, is another version of the extreme explosion.
In a short period of time, she has encountered several tragic events around her daughter, and even after cooperating with **, she still continues to encounter various out-of-control scenes, which are terrifying throughout the whole process.
Eventually she had a complete breakdown on the streets, hysterical.
Bloody and tyrannical have always been the labels of Lin Chaoxian's police films, and "Breaking Point" has been amplified to the extreme.
If we say that the form of violent aesthetics in movies has two main characteristics: one is to explore the sense of form of violent scenes such as gunfights and killings;The second is to glorify or stylize violence.
Then, Lin Chaoxian's police and gangster films have some unique, realistic and iconic elements.
The long knife is the most stylized prop in its Hong Kong-style police films.
For example, the newspaper seller on the street in "Beast Detective" was suddenly cut down;
and Gui Lunmei, who was cut off in the arm of an abandoned school in "The Informant", and Nicholas Tse, who was hit in the braincase with a knife;
In "Breaking Point", the use of this cold weapon in the climactic scene in the drug-making cave can suddenly make the audience's adrenaline soar.
The cruel story of your life and death is so shocking.
No spoilers here, I can only say that it deserves to be level III.
Family is the bottom line that triggers everyone's Burst Point
In addition to the bloody battle between good and evil, I personally think that pushing the weak character of the child to the extreme violence is also one of the reasons why "Breaking Point" has become a grade III film.
Putting violence and gore on children is extremely stinging to the audience in genre films.
The little girl who was mistakenly killed in the trunk in "Witness" is an eternal pain in the heart of the policeman played by Nicholas Tse.
also dealt a fatal blow to the audience's hearts within the opening 15 minutes.
Breaking Point also continues the setting of hanging the lives of children or young children by a thread.
Whether it is the son of Inspector Bang Sir or the daughter of Liang Luoshi, they all have the trauma of their original family, and they are also facing extreme dramatic situations.
The idle pen in the garage, the design of the gangster's little daughter's scene, is even more amazing, and it is heart-wrenching.
The processing done in the movie is to stab directly into the audience's heart as quickly as possible.
You think the director shouldn't dare, he tried without blinking.
It deserves to be level III.
Another key reason for the visual shock to the audience is that almost all the members, regardless of the size of the role and the number of scenes, went completely crazy and raised the violent butcher knife one by one.
For example, a young policeman who wants to avenge his father. He didn't give up at the last moment, trying to carry hard, resisting, trying to escape.
Zhou Xiuna's Han Yang girlfriend, she can reveal her true feelings, but she is always sober and has already made her own choice.
Another example is the very heart-wrenching younger brother Yingxiu, who never gave up Yingxiu, as the movie presents, Yingxiu is actually the breaking point of this small role.
Smashing the hero-worship regime reality is more explosive than the movies
Whether it is a police officer or a bandit, the dimension of their relationship with their families is the exploratory nature of the expression of "Breaking Point".
Compared with the image of the police in previous films such as "The Informant" and "Sweeping Drugs", the policeman Li Zhenbang portrayed by Zhang Jiahui in "Breaking Point" has new multiple complexities, which is reflected in the relationship with teammates, with the undercover Jiang Ming and with his own son.
A little knowledge will show that real police officers are burdened with the pressure of threats.
There have been reports that more than 1,600 family members of Hong Kong police officers have been illegally harassed.
It can be considered that the intertwined individual dilemmas of the police profession and family, the name of the father and the identity of the policeman, the presentation of the anxiety of their choices, and the analysis of human nature in "Breaking Point" are all resonant with the mood of the times.
Obviously, Li Zhenbang's image of a police officer carries an idealistic overtone.
As Zhang Jiahui said in a special interview: I haven't seen such a healthy policeman in a movie for a long time, and I will never cross the line.
But although Bangsir did not cross the line, he became more and more restricted in his actions, and his heart was extremely painful, he was a police officer with a huge sense of powerlessness.
As a policeman, Bang Sir seems to have opportunities left and right, whether it is to protect undercover agents or protect his son, but in fact, he has no choice at all.
This setting, which is full of humanistic considerations, directly shatters the "hero worship system" in traditional movies.
Just like Bang Sir played by Zhang Jiahui, he has faced the same choice dilemma as the "tram problem" many times in the film.
What's even more poignant is that whether it is the policeman with the most sense of justice, the undercover agent who hovers between black and white, or the gangster who is evil to the end, or the mother of the controlled drug maker, they all need to face the same problems: broken family affection, and the conflict between love and reason.
That's why there are rebellious children from the original family, who have stepped into the proposition of reincarnation of injury.
Therefore, everyone's breaking point is essentially the bottom line of their own family.
Before the "tram problem", how many people can make a choice like the end of the film?
If there is a state sir version of idealistic action that never takes a wrong step, then there must be the opposite of idealism - the real outlet.
So there is that rare ending of the movie.
Because, the real situation must be more violent than the movie.
Because of this, when asked whether he would consider changing the deletion to grade II in the classification, director Lin Chaoxian insisted on level III, on the one hand, the price that real police officers sometimes have to pay in real life, and on the other hand, Lin Chaoxian's feelings for the identity of the police.
At the beginning of 2023, Lam Chiu-yin filmed a short film "Defending the City" for the Hong Kong police, which depicts the professional professionalism and moral dimension of the Hong Kong police in counter-terrorism.
Director Lin Chaoxian's feelings for the police profession can be seen from the short film "Defending the City".
It is only when it is affectionate enough that it insists on using such a large scale to lead people to reflect on the complex practical problems that police identity must face.
And this is also where Zhang Jiahui, who has transformed from a police officer to an actor, can reach cognitive resonance with Lin Chaoxian.
If even they don't dare and don't insist, maybe even fewer people dare and some people insist.
Therefore, the "most Hong Kong power" was filmed.
Then you have to, see you in the theater.