MUK LAU HUNG GWONG (THE VICTIM)

Hong Kong, 1999, 90 minutes, Colour.
Tony Leung Ka Fai, Ching Wan Lau, Amy Kwok, Emily Kwan.
Directed by Ringo Lam.

The Victim is one of Ringo Lam’s best films. Writing and directing since the early 1980s, Ringo Lam’s films have been an influence on Hollywood, especially crime thrillers and martial arts thrillers. Quentin Tarantino acknowledged a debt to Lam’s City on Fire, 1987, for scenes in Reservoir Dogs.

Lam’s only American film was Maximum Risk with Jean -Claude Van Damme. In 2007 he combined with two other top Hong Kong directors of action films, Johnny To and Tsui Hark, for the film Triangle.

The Victim is an ingenious blend of crime and investigation thriller with horror elements.

1.The film as entertaining, as a police thriller, the twists, the horror touches?

2.The Hong Kong locations, the city? The police, Asian crises, gangsters? The environment? The musical score?

3.The blend of Hong Kong and American gangster thriller styles? The Hong Kong horror thriller styles?

4.Manson Maher and the disc, the van, his kidnapping, the guard killed, the video and the mystery?

5.The interrogation, the police? Pitt and his investigations? The exams? Lee and the boss? The assistants? The various questions and theories?

6.Miss Funeral, the house, the questions, the situation, the ten years (her mother and the phone)? Manson’s background, the job, the mint, his getting the sack, keeping the secret, the computers?

7.The message and the tapping of the phone, surveillance? In the haunted house? Its story? The search, the fears, Manson found hanging?

8.Madness, drink, being sick, the secrets, at home? The debts? Television and shares? With Amy? Delivering the drink, night and anxiety, the garden and the flowers, the bricks, jealousy of Amy, the police?

9.Pitt and the child, Grace and the phone? The haunted house, the parallels, the build-up to the surprise party and Pitt’s suspicions? The celebration? The photo?

10.The searching of the house, the candles, leading to the theories?

11.Amy’s kidnap, the role of the gangsters, the deal?

12.The car chase, the dangers? The bar and the phone call, the address? Bee shot and Manson’s interrogation? Pitt and his rage?

13.The mint, the abducting of the boss and his wife, the making of the money? The police outside, helpless?

14.Amy’s release, the ticket, digging up the body?

15.Manson, the money, power, the dates, the guillotine, arms, the battering? The security reacting?

16.Taking the boss’s wife, going to the home, confronting Amy, the truth? The choking? The chase? Pitt, the shooting in the cemetery, the suicide?

17.A thriller with psychological twists, Asian style? The significance of the title – to whom did it refer?