Comments on: Laugh Riot Encore: Herman Yau’s TURNING POINT

By: valerie soe

valerie soe — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 06:34:59 +0000

@jenny: ITA that Anthony Wong was bored with his role, although he’s such a great actor that he couldn’t help but be interesting. He collected a decent paycheck and he’s STILL wearing that Mohawk, so maybe the film made more of a dent in him than he thought it would.

Francis Ng, on the other hand, seemed pretty committed to his role, although he also recycled some of his trademark quirks. But the character actually had me guessing by the end, not in the least because of Francis’ acting chops. But both he & Anthony needed hair and wardrobe makeovers, imho.

I’ve never seen EU myself, but because of Turning Point my interested is piqued, especially since so many people say that Michael Tse is pretty good in it. The few unsubbed clips I’ve seen of him in it are totally different than the angsty creature in Turning Point so I want to check it out. Will look for it next time I’m in Chinatown–

By: Sanjuro

Sanjuro — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:12:10 +0000

I actually agree with all of you. My review of E.U. has been submitted, although I’m not sure I really say anything new for those that have been following these posts. I was probably a little harder on the show than I would have been if I hadn’t just re-watched Turning Point the other day — which is funny, because I have problems with that movie, too.

By: kylle

kylle — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:53:47 +0000

As mentioned in my previous comment, my opinion is that Turning Point was vastly inferior to EU in terms of its take on the subject of undercover cops. A friend in HK pointed out that EU’s Laughing was clearly on the side of the “establishment”, something that HK’s movie industry is known to loathe. Not sure how true that is, but it would explain the complete re-write of Laughing’s backstory and personality and all that made him so well-loved by TV audiences. If you had followed the “Laughing Gor Phenomenon” that made headlines a year ago, you would have known that many considered EU’s Laughing something fresh and different and at least comparable to Tony Leung’s undercover cop in Infernal Affairs — Turning Point could have kept to that original vision, the story could have explored two undercover cops that were faced with similar choices but walked different paths, and shown us how Anthony Wong and Francis Ng’s characters figured in Laughing’s growth into EU’s version of the character… As it was, however, Turning Point gave us nothing new.

By: jenny

jenny — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:09:55 +0000

I have never seen the original series but I rather liked Turning Point as a continuation of themes developed in On the Edge. Sure, Michael Tse’s character seems like a less charismatic clone of Nick Cheung’s and the story is weak. On the other hand, considering how many HK movies walked this path before, it was a diverting experience. Not in the least thanks to Francis Ng who revisited his character from On the Edge with much stronger results.
Anthony Wongs approach was strange, to say the least. He was probably bored but considering how his character has lost himself in the roles he had and has to play, his choice of costumes seems like a logical extension of his psychological troubles in his appearance.

By: Timo

Timo — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:09:25 +0000

Said it before in one of your EU posts, but I feel Yau’s movie is easily superior to the whole series, and maybe that’s precisely because it eschews the whole hysterical TVB drama side of things and just goes for a simple, retro-styled triad tale that’s inferior to Yau’s own ON THE EDGE, but still quite efficient and entertaining.

But what your post - and opinion - very well illustrates is that the film’s biggest problem is being set in the EU universe; it features a key character and similar-but-not-quite-the-same storylines, making it impossible to be clearly regarded as a wholly separate spin-off, thus pissing off EU fans - while not nearly featuring enough original substance to completely convince as a movie in its own right. It’s just somewhere inbetween, and that’s not exactly helping.

But yet again, Yau’s direction and the Wong/Ng combo make up for it to some degree.

By: QQ

QQ — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 07:22:06 +0000

Alas, I agree with your script rewrite since the entire story is pretty much provided in E.U. Yes, the tv series was watered down for censors but Laughing knew his purpose and reveled in his role - he’s so emo and confused in the movie. They also very specifically marked Laughing’s rise with the knife wound (where he nearly died) and they could expand how the crush on Sum develops. The young Sum can have a good naive heart of gold prostitute story who never lies. Could have many good focused consistent developments in Turning Point that they didn’t explore.