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Wed
of Deception |
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AKA: |
Deception |
Brigitte Lin and Pauline Wong |
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Year: |
1989 |
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Director: |
David
Chung Chi-Man |
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Producer: |
Tsui
Hark |
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Cast: |
Brigitte Lin
Ching-Hsia,
Joey Wong Cho-Yin,
Pauline Wong
Siu-Fung,
Elizabeth Lee Mei-Fung,
Waise Lee
Chi-Hung |
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The
Skinny: |
Involving
thriller that makes up for its silliness with fine acting,
good suspense, and great stars. An entertaining, enjoyably
dark suspense thriller. |
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Review
by Kozo: |
Brigitte Lin gets the screws put to her in Web of Deception,
an enjoyably silly suspense thriller that entertains as it
strains believability. Lin plays Lin, a successful businesswoman
who's just about to emigrate to Canada. However, she's blackmailed
by an unseen party, which leads her to suspect a couple of
possible blackmailers: her longtime, ostensibly loyal assistant
May (Pauline Wong), and her shady broker Miss Chow (Elizabeth
Lee).
Lin has Miss Chow obtain the blackmail
money, which she hides in her house. Unfortunately, Queenie
(Joey Wong), May's ultra-sweet roomate, shows up at Lin's
house to steal the blackmail money—not because she's
the blackmailer, but because her twin sister Cat (also Joey
Wong, natch) is being threatened by evil debt-collecting triads.
When Lin discovers Queenie is in her house, there's a struggle,
which leads to a spiralling series of tense incidents as the
various possible evildoers attempt to outwit and/or entrap
Lin in her own home. Meanwhile, Lin attempts to turn the tables
on her tormentors, though she still isn't too sure who they
are.
Web of Deception works best
when it gives the viewer information that the characters themselves
are not privy to. Cat shows up pretending to be Queenie, which
May herself hasn't figured out yet. May claims that Lin can
trust her, but clearly she can't. Even Lin gets in on the
duplicity, pretending to get along with her antagonists when
she clearly knows that they cannot be trusted. The ins-and-outs
of all this duplicity and double-crossing strains credibility;
you have to wonder just how stupid Lin is to have a supposed
private nurse (Cat pretending to be Queenie pretending to
be a private nurse) get the run of the house.
Still, the cat-and-mouse positioning
of the characters makes for wickedly involving cinema. Likewise,
the actors turn in explempary performances for what is essentially
a B-grade potboiler. Joey Wong is convincing both as the too-sweet-to-be-criminal
Queenie and the conniving Cat, and Pauline Wong is compelling
as the emotionally-conflicted May. Brigitte Lin anchors things
with her typically commanding screen presence. Director David
Chung Chi-Man keeps things moving efficiently, and producer
Tsui Hark's presence can be felt in the strong female characters
and the twisting narrative. Web of Deception is far
from a perfect film, as its plot too often relies on dumb
luck and convenient misdirection, but it's a darkly enjoyable
thriller nonetheless. (Kozo 1995/2004) |
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Awards:
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The
9th Annual Hong Kong Film Awards
• Nomination - Best
Supporting Actress (Pauline Wong
Siu-Fung) |
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Availability: |
DVD
(Hong Kong)
Region 0 NTSC
Fortune Star / Deltamac
Widescreen
Cantonese and Mandarin Language Tracks
Removable English and Chinese Subtitles |
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image courtesy
of Fortune Star
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| LoveHKFilm.com
Copyright ©2002-2017 Ross Chen
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