Triangle (DVD) (Japan Version) DVD Region 2

Welcome to the world of Triangle, a "relay film" that takes three very good directors, a group of interesting actors, a loaded premise, and then proceeds to go pretty much nowhere in a messy, inconsistent manner. Produced by Johnnie To's Milkyway Image production company, Triangle unites directors Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, and Johnnie To to tell the tale of a heist gone wrong, which the directors develop by following up on each other's leftovers. Basically, one director leads off, starting all the elements and subplots, whereupon another director takes over, developing the same elements in his own chosen manner. Then, one last guy comes in and bats clean-up. Tsui Hark is the leadoff batter, introducing the audience to Sam (Simon Yam), a harried fellow who's being pressured into taking on a getaway driver role in a proposed jewelry store robbery. The one pressuring him is supposed pal Fai (Louis Koo), who sweats like a madman about the situation because a trio of surly triad enforcers are after him for some dough, and Sam's role in the robbery is a large part of their deal.

Sam is reluctant, however, and his drinking buddy Mok (Sung Hong-Lei) advises him to stay away from Fai's get-rich-through-crime scheme. But even Mok isn't averse to a different sort of heist. The three meet a mysterious stranger who gives them a genuine gold coin and clues to a possible buried treasure, located in Hong Kong's Legislative Council building. All three need the dough (Fai and Sam are destitute, while Mok's antique store is being foreclosed), so they endeavor to steal the treasure together. The problems: the roving triads after Fai, Sam's unstable wife Ling (Kelly Lin), and dirty cop Wen (Gordon Lam), who also happens to be sleeping with Ling and is involved in some shady, threatening relationship with Fai. In this opening segment, Tsui Hark introduces the elements deftly and efficiently, easily drawing the audience into the story. There's some potent stuff introduced, as well as some rather silly developments, but Tsui struts his stuff effectively, starting the Triangle ride with both style and verve.

Ringo Lam picks up where Tsui Hark leaves off, and puts his own spin on things, introducing emotional complexity, and some unexpected, even bizarre twists. His ideas don't fully pay off, however, and Triangle stumbles heavily as it simply stops making sense. Narrative leaps occur, eliciting possible exclamations of "What the hell?", and the film starts to become experimental in a bewildering fashion. Lam gives both Fai and Mok short shrift, and instead concentrates heavily on the relationship between Sam and Ling. In Tsui's segment, the possibility is raised that Sam may be trying to slowly murder Ling, and Lam's segment seems to explore that subplot more deeply. However, Lam doesn't provide any answers, and his characters ultimately come off as senseless. Sam is more calculating and even menacing than his initial meek character seemed to indicate, and Ling goes from unstable and paranoid to greedy and opportunistic. Both characters seem to change drastically, indicating that Lam either radically interpreted Tsui's intentions, or simply ignored them for his own perceived notions of where the film should go. Regardless of whether or not his intentions were justified, the results aren't as inspiring as they are simply puzzling. In its second segment, Triangle sags.

Luckily, Johnnie To bats clean-up, saving the day in his own inimitable style. That style, however, is achieved by largely ignoring what came before, changing characters and situations to serve up a vintage sampler platter of Johnnie To's ironic absurdities and thinly-veiled Buddhist themes. There's some cool stuff going on in To's segment, including an amusing restaurant-set standoff and subsequent shootout that takes a sitcom-style setup and turns it into cinema gold. To stages a drawn-out mix-em-up involving similar-looking bags and a mismatched grouping of characters, who all coincidentally show up in the same place at the same time to get involved in To's darkly funny criminal wackiness. There's style and panache on display, and To gets effective performances from Lam Suet, You Yong, and Sun Hong-Lei to bring the film to its final, self-amused parting shot. When Triangle ends, the feeling is one of cinematic bemusement. Yeah, it was a bit odd and even scattershot, but it was also rather fun.

But was it fun for the right reasons? Probably not, as Triangle isn't really a film, but an experiment in auteur excess that only works if someone is familiar with not only the Milkyway house style, but also the "relay film" concept. Generally, the idea is that each director is supposed to continue what came before, but as the film progresses, each director actually seems to ignore the preceding director's work rather than follow up on it. Subplots get dropped, situations go from realistic to ridiculous, and characters change drastically. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the character of Ling and her relationship with Sam. Each director seems to be exploring a different idea of the struggle between marital affection and distrust, and their viewpoints differ sharply. Kelly Lin's Ling is the most problematic, as her character seems to possess multiple clichéd personalities, becoming a potentially revealing insight into each director's views and/or prejudices. Someone could easily dissect each director's handling of her character and come up with some idea of how each views women. Feminist film theorists: this is a job for you.

But most people aren't feminist film theorists, and they're not card-carrying Hong Kong Cinema fanboys either. For casual viewers, Triangle feels like an obvious misfire as it doesn't do what a film is generally expected to do, i.e. take a defined set of characters and situations and develop them in a compelling, consistent manner. This is not a movie for casual audiences because it doesn't provide what mass audiences perceive as entertaining or necessary. The film's suspense doesn't arise from situations or characters, but from the question of what each director will pull out of their ass next. That's hardly the usual definition of a successful work, though many inclined audiences will likely forgive these guys anyway. Triangle fails as a standard film, but succeeds as a self-indulgent cinema experiment showcasing the exciting choices and curious missteps perpetrated by three damn fine directors - most especially Johnnie To, whose relevance on the Hong Kong Cinema scene has now eclipsed former local kingpins Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam. Fans of To are sure to go gaga over this collection of Milkyway players and themes, and the crime film iconography and To's sharp sense of irony are as entertaining and enthralling as ever.

Triangle obviously caters to Milkyway fanboys - a smart marketing move, because for casual audiences, the film will probably not fly, rendering the film an interesting if not infuriating curiosity. It's a shame that Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, and Johnnie To couldn't actually take the "relay film" premise and create a solid, consistent film instead of simply choosing to each go their own way. Had they managed to pull off something that cohered into a single effective work, then the film could have been a true accomplishment instead of a messy and uneven exercise in entertaining self-indulgence. As it is, Triangle is simply a fun and very flawed in-joke for the Asia-centered cineaste, and a fanboy high-five from three crazy directors who know their stuff. Thanks a lot, guys. Now go and make your own movies again.

by Kozo - LoveHKFilm.com

So, Tsui Hark. One of Hong Kong's brightest lights, a true icon, and - in recent days - also one of the most frustratingly inconsistent. Both the highs and lows of Tsui Hark are evident in the opening act. Tsui is aiming to throw down the gauntlet for the two directors to follow and he's not about to make things easy. Here's what he gives them to work with. At the center is a trio of down-on-their-luck friends, each of them desperate for cash. The three meet a mysterious figure who gives them a gold coin and a website that, when deciphered, opens up a highly lucrative heist job for them. Simple enough so far, but one of the trio (Louis Koo) is also being forced to do a jewelry store robbery for a triad gang he is in debt to and they're pushing him to find a driver. And, just in case that job won't pay enough, he's also working as a snitch for a hard assed cop. The cop, for his part, is having an affair with the wife of one of the trio's other members (Simon Yam) , a woman who claims she is now pregnant with his child - a problem since her husband is infertile. Needing to get the husband out of the picture, and taking advantage of the fact that Yam is a former rally car driver, the cop pushes Koo to take on Yam as the triad's getaway driver so that he can bust him following the robbery and clear the path for his relationship with Yam's wife.

Now, this is just the core of the set up. There's more. It's not impossible to follow but it is definitely dense and many will find it overly and unnecessarily plotted, with at least one sub plot too many all vying for attention. Aiming to do too much and, as a result, not quite having the time to do all of it well has been a problem for Tsui Hark in recent days and it's one that crops up again here. Luckily, however, the subsequent directorial pair had full control over the scripting of their own sequences and they waste no time in simplifying and narrowing the focus down.

Ringo Lam carries the bulk of the film's character work. He steps back from the hectic plotting of the first act and gives the characters room to breathe. It's a smart and welcome move, one that pays off in some quality exploration of the dynamics within our core trio as well as the film's other major triangle, the three pointed love story between Yam, his adulterous wife and the cop. We get to know the characters considerably better in Lam's segment which helps the film build to a handsome payoff in To's concluding act.

Talking about the To segment in any detail is virtually impossible without spilling major plot points but suffice it to say that the man's hot streak continues unabated. He does an admirable job of wrapping things together into one tight little package that balances out the film's noir action edge with some vintage comedy of errors.

Were it the work of a single director, Triangle could easily be criticized for being a little bit inconsistent. It is. But that's part of the point of the film. What we have here are three directors at play, setting out to trip each other up while answering the challenges laid down by those that came before. It's a fascinating little experiment, one whose weaknesses are easily overshadowed by not only the novelty of the piece but also by the technical virtuosity of the directors and crew and by the film's unending series of strong performances. Flawless? No. Fascinating? You bet. Entertaining? Hell, yes.

by Todd Brown - Twitchfilm.net