Such exotic misadventures should play well with Korean audiences who have grown accustomed to seeing their stars run amok in foreign cities on screen, given the popularity of the similarly Hong Kong/Macau-set heist caper The Thieves and the more solemn espionage thriller The Berlin File.Īs Helios slowly dissipates into incoherent parts, its central narrative through line becomes increasingly irrelevant not even revelations of enemies within the ranks can bring the story back to logic and life. Meanwhile, the South Korean agents (played by Jewel in the Palace star Ji Jin-hee and pop idol Choi Si-won) wallow in their own schmaltzy buddy-bonding melodrama, complete with moments of comedy, weighty themes of self-sacrifice and the inevitable sight of sobbing kin mourning those who died in service. In scenes aimed at securing garlands from viewers of every political persuasion, Siu and Lee are seen voicing concerns about the mainland’s meddling with Hong Kong’s affairs Song, on the other hand, is also steadfastly proclaiming how “those who mess with Hong Kong, are also messing with China.” The local contingent, led by physicist Siu Chi-yan ( Jacky Cheung) and detective Eric Lee ( Nick Cheung), squabble among themselves – and also with paternalistic mainland Chinese official Song An ( Wang Xueqi) – in what amounts to a political parable about the individuality of Hong Kong as a distinct part of China.
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama, Fantasy, Mystery & thriller. Read More Beijing Film Festival’s Major Challenges: Horrible Air Quality, Tech Glitches, Lack of Star Power An international response team must come together to find a stolen weapon of mass destruction, in spite of very different prerogatives. In Helios, ciphers abound – that includes even the main protagonists, thinly sketched members of a counter-terrorism team. Like the bomb, the pair are there to serve as a harbinger of gunfights and white-knuckle brawls (which, truth be told, action choreographer Chin Ka-lok delivers with flair). But the bomb isn’t the point here: what Leung and Luk, who also wrote the screenplay, seemed more interested in is the fallout caused by that MacGuffin of a weapon of mass destruction brought into Hong Kong (via airport customs – don’t ask) by a multilingual mercenary ( Chang Chen) and his ferocious fighter sidekick ( Janice Man). Helios‘ basic premise of terrorists trading nuclear weapons in Hong Kong is hardly new – in 1999, Teddy Chen was already unleashing chemical-weapon-wielding Khmer Rouge cadres on Hong Kong in The Purple Storm. Read More Hong Kong Film Awards: ‘The Golden Era’ Leads With Five Wins
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