CUSTOMS FRONTLINE (2024)
(director: Herman Yau; screenwriters: Erica Li, Eric Lee; cinematographers: Joe Chan, Derek Siu, Ngai Man-yin; editor: Azrael Chung; music: Brother Hung; cast:Nicholas Tse (Chow Ching-lai), Jacky Cheung (Cheung Wan-nam), Brahim Chab (Leo), Francis Ng (Kwok Chi-Keung), Cya Liu (Agent Ying, Thai Interpol Agent),Karena Lam (Athena Siu), Amanda Strang (Dr. Raw); Runtime: 120; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Albert Yeung; Well Go USA Entertainment; 2024-Hong Kong-in Cantonese with English subtitles)
“Makes little sense.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Hong Kong filmmaker Herman Yau (“Moscow Mission”/”Death Notice”) directs this Hong Kong formulaic cop procedural thriller. Writers Erica Li and Eric Lee handle the screenplay. It’s a star vehicle for Nicholas Tse, who for the first time does the action choreography in a film.
The HK Customs and Excise Department is trying to nab a ring of international weapons dealers. Chow Ching-lai (Nicholas Tse), the hard-working but difficult to work with Customs Department officer, is onto the mysterious Dr. Raw (Amanda Strang), a top-level, ruthless black market arms dealer smuggling guns and other weapons through Hong Kong. Raw’s criminal activity was pursued by Cheung Wan-nam (Jacky Cheung), Chow’s unstable but sympathetic mentor boss, until he suffers from a bipolar disorder and has Chow carry on the work.
When Cheung discovers a well-positioned mole within the Customs Department, things get dicey. While Chow is busy trying to stop Raw from arming the fictional African nations of Hoyana and Loklamoa, who are at war over a dispute regarding fishing rights.
Cheung becomes a figurehead for his department, that suffers from bureaucracy. Kwok Chi-keung (Francis Ng), the bureau’s paternal, but unfriendly co-commissioner, is blamed for the department’s rigidity and lack of gumption.
There are crypto-currency bribes, a violent suicide, inter-departmental sabotage, Raw’s successful raid on a HK Customs Department weapon warehouse, the Thai Interpol agent (Cya Liu) intercepting illegal weapons on a cargo ship with no passengers and tracing the ship to an HK company, a car chase that results in one vehicle boxed in by four other vehicles, and CGI cargo ships and tank-sized jeeps exploding.
Tse ’s too stiff to carry the movie on his own, but his supporting cast help make the film more palpable. They include Karena Lam as Customs department officer Athena Siu, Cheung’s devoted gf.
Yau’s film makes little sense, as it moves at a fast pace from one sensationalized scene to another.
The HK films have greatly deteriorated in quality since financed and influenced by mainland China in modern times. If you compare this mediocre film financed by China with Yau’s free-wheeling HK financed films of the 90s, such as the “Ebola Syndrome,” you can see the difference.
REVIEWED ON 7/31/2024 GRADE: C
dennisschwartzreviews.com