Operation Billionaires (1998)

Taking a leaf out of Casino's book, Operation Billionaires is another film to deal with a real-life underground figure. This time, the focus is on kidnapper of tycoon's offspring 'Big Spender' Cheung Tze-keung. The film kicks off with an ever-so-nice Cheung Chi-ho (Simon Yam) helping an old lady and telling children not to play football in the street. But it's not long before he's plotting the kidnap of the first of two tycoon's sons. Neither case is reported to the cops (as in reality). All goes well, until Cheung teams up with another big-time criminal, Cyclone, and a tycoon calls in the cops via Zhang Zemin and the Chief Executive.

What happened in reality is murky enough, and much public speculation is loosely slipped into the film. Whatever is true or not, the movie paints a very nice portrait of the 'Big Spender'. He refuses to kill, he loves his de-facto (Sherming Yiu), and he looks out for his men while abiding by gangster's codes. He even feeds his hostages abalone (a very expensive delicacy). Cyclone, on the other hand, is portrayed as the real nasty. Not Cheung - at one point he says he's no less a thief than Hong Kong's richest man. He just uses different means.

Films like this are certainly interesting enough in principle, but Operation Billionaires is not particularly gripping. Being a quick production, there is little to the characters, and script. But Simon Yam gets right into his part, as he so often manages to do. The side characters, especially the cops, are nothing special and Yiu Lok-yi may have been cast for her cleavage, again (after all, the swimming pool scene featured prominently on the lobby cards).

Trivia notes:
- The film was released on the opening day of Cheung Tze-keung's trial in Shenzen.

- Cheung Tze-keung was executed outside Guangzhou on 5 December 1998.

Some info about the DVD release: Universe have put together a good package for this fun little film, though features are few. There's a trailer, and a good biography for Simon Yam [hmmph! where's Sherming Yiu Lok-yi?]. Trailers for four Wong Jing flicks - Your Place or Mine, Raped by an Angel 3: The Sexual Fantasy of the Chief Executive, Haunted Mansion and Tricky King - are included. The primer for Haunted Mansion is a terrific little abstract number. The movie itself is from a crisp and colourful print and carries two languages (Cantonese and Putonghua) and three sets of subtitles (Chinese simplified and traditional, and English). The box description of the movie is priceless - heaping praises on Cheung Tse-keung, "who is so smart, inteligent and tough...".

Credits:

Directed by Andy Ng
Script: Lee Siu-kay
Starring: Simon Yam, Patrick Tam and Sherming Yiu Lok-yi