Jin shou zhi

It kinda reminds me of a Chinese TV series called The Knockout (Kuang Biao), given their similar duo-protagonists, ambitious-police-versus-powerful-criminal setups. But really, The Goldfinger is extremely fluent and complete, with a convoluted plot, captivating narrative, and outstanding performances across the board. Some of investigation and stock center scenes impressed me especially, which are perceptibly well-considered and thought-out. I see no immediate flaw after my first watch-through. If we have to knit pick, I guess some of the dangling threads in the first half could be resolved with more detail, for instance Carmen's part and KK's end. Overall, I'd say this is one of the best Chinese films of the year.

Giving this an 8/10 rating

New crime thriller from the filmmakers of 'Infernal Affairs' which had Andy Lau in, and he's in this too, along with Tony Leung.

Tony Leung, plays an poor engineer who comes to Hong Kong seeking work and gets involved in wrong doing that escalates in him running a criminal empire of billions, Andy Lau, plays the police investigator who goes after him. It's all very complex and very tense.

It looks and feels of the era it's set in the 1980's and corruption is all over the place. Even the slow parts still engage and you see just how greedy people can really be. It's a lovely production and the acting is full on brilliant, which does make up for action, which there is some, it's not done with any glamour, it's done to shock. But it's really the two main leads who pull off the show, again. Another true story that I did not know about.

I am very curious about what happened to this film.

It's like a chef preparing high-end ingredients to make a stunning dish for diners, but halfway through, he suddenly finds that the natural gas has run out, and there is no other heat source available, so he can only rely on the residual heat in the pot to cook the dish.

The first half of the film is undoubtedly a good one. Seeing Tony Leung and Andy Lau opposite each other will make people wonder whether it can reach the height of "Infernal Affairs". As a result, it completely collapsed in the second half. The narrative advancement relied entirely on voiceover dictation, and every scene that could have been polished turned into a few seconds scenes.

Back in the 1970s, Hong Kong was riddled with corrupt officials that the Government determined to bring to book. Much to the chagrin of one of the principal culprits - the police - they established an anti-corruption unit charged with addressing this problem, and thanks to one of their lead investigators (Andy Lau) they succeed! Many years later, when the British and Chinese start to talk about the colony's reunification, the Stock Market plummets and he is brought back to investigate the wealthy boss of a large network of companies (Tony Leung) who is living his gilded life of luxury whilst his investors seem to be losing their shirts. As he looks into things more, he discovers an intricate web of subsidiaries, bribery and shell companies that prove to resemble the ultimate in ponzi schemes. It's not just the enterprise that is suspect, but he gradually realises that the dodgy establishment he had hoped he had helped to dismantle years earlier had just, very efficiently, reinvented itself - and it permeates through to the top echelons of society. The film is based on real events and so, like them, we have peaks and troughs as the plot develops. That's where the film rather loses it's way. At it's best, it's tightly structured with a good dynamic between the policeman and his prey. For most of the rest of it, it rather meanders along with a real paucity of detail and little effort to show us just how charisma and charm duped just about everyone. A decent effort from Lau and Leung but it's a long two hours that skimps too much on the interesting aspects of an business that spanned the world at it's peak, run by a sleazy and unscrupulous man.

There's a Chinese saying called tiger head, snake tail, which perfectly describes the film. The Goldfinger starts with a bang with over the top scenes that harkens back to the heydays of HK cinema. But as the story progresses, you realize how thin of a plot the movie has. The film fails to develop further on what is a very interesting rivalry between Tony Leung and Andy Lau, even worse if you consider how much of a classic The Departed was. In the end, the film is too "business-oriented" and not driven by its story enough. To make matters worse, the ending feels like something to appease movie authorities.