Chasing the Dragon II: Wild Wild Bunch (Jason Kwan, Jing Wong) [Archive]

Stay Puft

06-22-2019, 02:20 AM

Not an actual sequel, but another true crime epic from Wong Jing, Chasing the Dragon evidently intended now as the name of a franchise featuring standalone chapters detailing high profile stories from Hong Kong's past. Not a terrible idea, perhaps, but certainly branding run amok: "Chasing the dragon" is drug culture slang, and is specifically tied to the plot of the first film. Chasing the Dragon II as a title is functionally incoherent in this context (the film was originally called Master of Ransom).

Also, it's worse than the first film. Take everything wrong with that film and amplify it, from the haphazard structure and baffling emotional beats to the deep-seated sexism. If you thought the first film had problems w/r/t women, wait until you see this (while keeping in mind that I am not recommending anybody see this): One of the girls in Tony Leung's entourage promptly disappears from the film after only two scenes (and no lines), the film simply cannot be bothered to even remember she exists at all. And, of course, the women who do get lines in this film are highly sexualized and undressed under the film's unrelenting (perverted, old) male gaze (it's two hours of Wong Jing barely able to keep it in his pants, if that's appealing to you) AND, spoiler alert, they both die. Their only function in the story is to get shot, die, and provide motivations for the men to move the plot (though the men do also quickly forget they ever existed and find other motivations).

The film gestures in a few different directions and ultimately can't decide what it's doing. It flashbacks to the first film only briefly, suggesting that every time period or period of extreme political tension or whatever sees the rise of legends, and every time period needs its legends. That's clearly referring to Tony Leung and criminals in general, but it's not clear what Wong Jing thinks he's doing. Glorifying criminals, condemning criminals (state censorship still requires that the cops live and criminals die and we understand why, above and beyond any duty to facts or storytelling), glorifying cops, condemning materialism, glorifying capitalism... it's a grab bag of genre elements, signifying its own vanity.

Wong Jing, you old horndog. You madman. You goddamn son of a bitch.

Someone needs to stop this man. This is easily the worst film I've seen so far this year. And I just saw Dark Phoenix.