| Ray Lui stepped into the shoes of Limpy Ho for To Be Number One and the acclaim garnered from that real life dramatization lead to a number of bigger vehicles, always with at least Stephen Shiu lurking in the background. In Man Of The Times, I'm not certain Lui's character Chan Chi Chiu's rise from cadet to corrupt prick of the police force gets its truths from real life but it certainly tries to present a political view of issues of reality. Now that doesn't sound totally uninteresting but in the hands of director Taylor Wong, it all sinks like a rock. Trying to portray our man and his times in broad, comedic (Ng Man-Tat is a whirlwind of annoyance in this once) and to an extent, straight faced ways while looking at corruption of the times, neither mood gels and rather shows a large degree of hack behaviour from a hack director. But the feeling is definitely that of had Wong gone with making one movie, he still would've bored us to tears. Now the contrasts are just there to annoy us to the extent that we happen to finish the flick in the process. Kent Cheng, Veronica Yip (largely wasted despite being a dramatic element), Ben Ng, Bowie Lam, Deannie Yip, Kelvin Wong, Louis Roth and Kwan Hoi-San also appear. |
Quick Takes:
