However, Wu's sniper character knows that in his career, he is both the hunter, and the hunted, and at times want to prove to Kwok that he makes a better cop. Ekin Cheng's a lawyer who defends the innocent, or so it seems. While he's aware that his clients are sometimes guilty, is he idly standing by? Thrown into the mix are characters like Cheng's wife, played by the lovely Angelica Lee, who bears a strong resemblance to Kwok's girl, and thus making him a stalker of sorts, Eric Tsang as an underused pathologist, Ning Jing the only movie I saw her in was the remake of Shanghai Grand as a bald assassin agent, and Lo Kar Leung as Cheng's client who has shady underworld links and a pop star son, who gets kidnapped.
At times you might feel that the movie plods along, while you might already have been able to unravel the mystery mid-way. This could be due to the sappy moments I mentioned earlier, and taking centerstage is how Kwok's cop character refuses to give up looking for his girlfriend.
You can understand how the character feels if you're in the same shoes - loving someone so deeply, and yet having zero closure. And when you think you see her again - is it really her, or had amnesia played a part, or has she deliberately forgotten the past? While the audience found the scene of revelation and Kwok's reaction to it funny, I felt the opposite - sometimes when the truth is revealed and you can't handle it, you shut down. Trust me, I know. So if I were in his shoes, that'll probably be what will happen to me too.
However, this film does have moments which can iconify it sort of like the Tony-Leung-pointing-a-gun-at-Andy-Lau's-head moment in Infernal Affairs.
The "long run to the fish market" scene is tense, and so is the finale where 3 characters have a standoff, which actually yanked the rug off my feet. I felt that if this film focused tightly on the plot, and lose some peripheral characters, it might just live up to its potential, and I don't think we'll see any sequels to this one. Considerably better than movies in the same genre such as director Benny Chan's own recent New Police Story, "Divergence" would still come under the categorisation of "flick" in my book, albeit a fairly good one.
One reason would be Ivy Ho's "Shore West" script which is usually reliable. The mission is to tie together the stories of three men, each at a cross-road, played by Aaron Kwok, Ekin Chang sort of reunion of the Wind-Cloud duo from Storm Riders and Daniel Wu, through a woman played by Angelica Lee. On the whole, the job is quite well done, with a reasonable degree of coherence, although it is not difficult to point to logical gaps, predictability and coincidences that really stretch one's imagination.
At the end of the day, this is still an action flick, but one with more emphasis on the story line and character depiction.
Some of the action sequences still reach jaw-dropping proportions, such as Kwok chasing Wu on the elevated freeway in the middle of brisk traffic, or a massive truck coming literally within inches of Kwok's body lying on the road. All these become even more impressive when you hear director Chan intimate in a radio interview that Kwok did not use any stunt replacement for these shots.
Trying to keep this report spoiler free, I wouldn't delve into the characterisation other than saying that there are generally good efforts, with varying results. I would say though that TV superstar Lo Kar-leung outshines the three principals, while talented Angelica Li is underused. As usual for Hong Kong movies, the ensemble of "regular" supports is always a joy to see. There's also Ning Jing showing her worth by demonstrating that she is just as alluring in her shaved head.
Adorable 12 May Just like its Hollywood contemporary, the fabled jewel of the east, also known as Hong Kong, shovels mouthfuls of filler in the general direction of its loyalist audiences. And similar to fluff done anywhere else, HK's variety also comes in the irritating form of polished, well-supervised products with at least acceptable technical merits and yet little beyond. We recently had two mega-stars like Andy Lau and Jacky Cheung suffer through mediocre episode Jiang Hu, further thrashing the over-strained underworld genre, and here comes a Benny Chan flick to additionally burden the cops and crooks theme with uninvited baggage.
At least in Chan's case the memory of capable actioner New Police Story still lingers, so we'll forgive him the helming of Divergence and its, in essence, vacuous content and pretty embarrassing conclusion. You'd be right in expecting more from Chan and his writer cohort Ivy Ho who previously penned classic July Rhapsody , but nonetheless both failed to come up with any worthy goods this time around.
Presumably, Divergence gets its moniker from the three main personages operating inside the film's confused and unfulfilled promise. Suen Aaron Kwok is a sarcastic police officer working various, rather high-profile cases, at least one of which we witness going bad with the baddie under Suen's protection buying the farm in a gruesome fashion courtesy of the second main character, a hit-man known simply as Coke Daniel Wu, who lost some weight and much appeal in a role that's beginning to smack of typecasting.
Coke's success and Suen's misfortune set in motion a series of events that supposedly want to point out the ironic nature of life, the universe, and whatever the people counting box office returns happen to report. The terminated criminal Suen was sheltering leaves a mean triad boss Gallen Lo feeling a whole lot better about things, but ultimately lands everyone in more trouble since the latter's enemies soon move to equalize by retaliating against his family. This sort of complication doesn't make Suen's life any easier as he tries to focus on capturing renegade Coke and his sultry female accomplice done by mainlander Ning Jing.
Defending the underworld elements is attorney To Hou Sung, done by our favorite hunk Ekin Cheng, and here completing the triumvirate of male leads.
Although silent and reserved, To quickly gets on Suen's nerves, and not just for his application of the law as an excuse for things one would sooner sweep under the floorboards.
There's another element figuring in, further showing us how intertwined the trio is and why even minute occurrences can have repercussions much later down the line, hence Divergence.
The factor in question is naturally a woman, and one who perhaps has been missing for the better part of a decade. It's the apple in the eye of cop Suen, an ex called Fong, portrayed with minimal gusto by gorgeous Angelica Lee. The disgruntled cop obsesses over his former lover and her vanishing all those years ago, even though we don't see much of their relationship other than contrived, hokey memory sequences and Kwok's miserable cry fest moments as fortified with extra-dumb instances of pseudo-animalistic howling.
As if that wasn't enough, someone had the brilliant idea of encumbering Suen with several idiotic attempts at self destruction, resulting in him miraculously surviving and changing cars about as often as you do socks. Must have been quite the improvement in HK auto insurance since we last looked into the matter. Plus, the music people, bless their souls, thought it prudent to include one of the cheesiest collections of sentimental overtures one has heard in a long, blissfully quiet time.
It's all enough to make you reach for the hurl bag. And as we sit through the travails of Suen and his struggle with shadows of the past, it becomes apparent none of the main characters gets enough space to mature and grow, thus the various pieces never click.
This trickles down to supporting figures like Ning Jing and too-prolific Eric Tsang as a jolly, noodle-slurping police medical examiner who never loses his appetite no matter how grisly the stiffs. Ha ha but not all that funny, thank you.
Not even the action itself lives up to whatever high expectations you may have of this project, if any. Fighting's pretty lame and basic, there's little gunplay, and the car chases seem to use the same beat up Mazdas you've seen in scores of older HK movies. But probably the biggest disappointment comes when the thing finishes, with characters coming out of nowhere to reach an easy, convenient and utterly ridiculous ending that somehow explains the various "enigmas" you were supposed to fuss over during the plot.
But of course there was no fussing at all, seeing as how can anybody care about a story lacking in so many departments to begin with? At least for Divergence Angelica Lee looks her best yet, so for all thus inclined mayhap there's some incentive to watch yet. On all other counts, Divergence misses the mark big time, leading down paths of inadequacy any film buff needn't even consider following. While conducting a routine witness transfer Suen Siu-yan feels the wrath of the hit-man Coke, after barely escaping with his life he starts further investigation into the case, the prize being Barrister To's gangster boss.
At this point, three seemingly unrelated lives converge into a hailstorm of bullets and bloodshed. If it sounds like typical Hong Kong action flick thats because it is. Everything about this film, at a cursory glance, is typical. The Acting is well-done, and the cinematography and Direction is also good, and the action is good too.
But there is still something lacking in Divergence. I had to watch this film twice to figure out what was missing. On the second viewing I figured it out. This movie has no heart. It has everything that makes a good action film but in the end, you just don't care about the characters. The film makes all the stops and covers all the bases, and it should be a great film.
But sadly, it's not, I was hoping for a great gunkata thriller but I was sadly disappointed. After Aaron Kwok won the Golden Horse, the Taiwan's equivalent of the Oscar, for best actor, I got interested in this movie to try to figure out how this pop star who was considered a long shot by many people won the prestigious award.
The first impression I got after I finished was, and I remembered clearly, sitting at my sofa, staring at the blank TV screen for a couple of minutes, and saying, "What just happened?
The opposite occurred. I was confused. The movie was a typical Hong Kong movie, with the usual grittiness and stylishness. It had its moments, but sometimes, for some strange reason, it felt slow. Maybe there was not the ridiculous amount of gunfire, car chases and explosions that we viewers of Hong Kong thriller films are most familiar with and what I am most fond with.
Maybe the love line story was so unnecessary that it dragged the movie down. Whatever the case, the mysteries and the search for the truth got my attention and got me excited The twist right before the ending was a little surprising, but in retrospect it became obvious because too many clues were given that even a 2 year old could guess it not recommended for 2 year olds- they are too young to be subjected to bad films.
Still, it could be forgiven because an effort was made and it was a decent twist, no matter how predictable it was. However, here was what killed the moving- the ending. Nothing good could be said about it. It felt like they were trying to make this movie sophisticated by leaving so many questions unanswered. The problem was, those questions were not rhetorical or philosophical questions that might make one reexamines one's life.
Instead, those questions were questions about the plot; the ending made the writers look stupid and left the movie feeling unfinished. Not enough clues were given in the film to help the viewers to try to answer the questions that were left. I tried to answer those questions, but after a few moments of pondering, I gave up and started swearing at the writers for wasting almost 2 hours of my time and the favors I have to pull to borrow this movie.
There was no way to answer them and it was dumb to even try. I could not say nothing good came out of this film. I finally understood the formula for the voting panel at the Golden Horse Awards. The guy was once part of the legendary 4 kings of Hong Kong pop music and even though the status had became history and he was struggling for the past few years, he still have draw power. Letting him win would be a feel good story and let people talk about it for days; it could boost popularity for the show, which saw its ratings down from last year and had been on the down side in recent years.
This was not to put down Mr. He did a good job and it might arguably be the best performance of his career. However, compared to the other nominees, his performance still felt weak.
I guess everything was for the ratings. My only advice: do not watch it just because Aaron Kwok won the Golden Horse for it. It is a meaningless piece of work and your time would be better devoted elsewhere. Muviegirl 26 January I loved this movie!!
Helping whom? On what project? For how long? What are my commitments? Now that I have already started the project, how long would I stay in it? Can I get out? There will be a time when they want to be a free man, free from being virtuous because it is now a burden, a trap. Or they would rework the balance, and swing back to egoism and pleasure. Before writing this essay, I did a life history case study of a Hong Kong philanthropist, an educationist: Francis C.
K Lee. I had spent seven hours non-stop with Francis. We started from mid-afternoon and talked all the way through dinner in a Singaporean restaurant. It was a very long interview. Lee is not your Li Ka Shing though they have the same surname in Chinese. He has donated money to the building of two primary schools. One of the reasons I picked him for my case study is that I wanted to move away from big-time donors whom I had already written about in my book Stepping Out. I want to study those who are sort of in the middle realm.
They are not high up there, they are in the middle, in between. Sociologists are fascinated with those who are in between. They are not upper, they are not lower. I am trained as a social psychologist in the Chicago school of sociology tradition. I am also a family sociologist. I am fond of using classical sociological theories to make sense of what is happening within the family, including my own family. And I always look at marriage as an ideal type of a human pair, a dyad, a two-some embedded in a lager whole, be it clan, kin network, community, society, the world.
I would like to frame my essay largely in terms of the exchange theory Levinger Three simple words. There are several basic postulates of this theory.
One is that human actors seek to maximize reward and minimize cost. Another postulate is that a rewarding relationship will continue and, conversely, a costly relationship will discontinue. Anytime we have this question to answer, we enter into a certain kind of deliberations.
One simple example of altruism is donating blood. I do not know how many of you had the experience of donating blood. You have to ask a lot of questions. What are the costs of donating? Costs of time, energy, and blood. And there is a cost of not donating, be it guilt or shame, two rather strong emotions among the Chinese. And there are benefits of donating: you feel good about yourself, your bolster your self-worth, you raise your self-esteem, you contribute to your self-growth, self-actualization.
And there are benefits of not donating: saving time, saving the pain of the needle. Let me now do some theoretical work. It is a dyad, a two-some Fig. I call that the schema of person-other relationship. You draw two circles, call one circle, P, and the other, O.
There is a middle area, an overlapping of the two circles. The P is the donor, the person who does good, the altruist, the philanthropist. The O is the other, the project of philanthropy, something that we do, it is an act, for example, to build a school, to donate a kindergarten, a museum. Then, there are forces that push the P and the O toward each other, which I call the positive forces.
Of course one ideal scenario is when circle P overlaps circle O, totally, completely—in fact one circle is on top of another circle Fig. From whose point of view? May this state not be the best, the ideal? At this moment, I and my philanthropy cannot be distinguished. Two rolled into one. I become a 24 - hour philanthropist , not part-time. This is amazing, like falling in love. Imagine this man P, this woman O, and they are together, two bodies, two minds, two souls, combined to become one.
The two are now madly in love; I cannot separate myself from her, and vice versa. We see each other every minute, every second. That is romantic love , which, in its extreme form, may represent something that is sick, mad, abnormal.
Of course, there are also forces pushing P and O away from each other, meaning that there are some reasons or forces because of which the donor cannot be too fully engaged in his charity work, which may turn out to be a good thing, a balance, as too much of a good thing is bad. We call these negative and positive forces.
Let me move on. We can talk about an attraction to the relationship. What attracts me to this P—O relationship, what attracts me to this project, what attracts me to philanthropy? I would argue, recalling the exchange theory, that attraction is directly associated with its perceived rewards, and inversely with its perceived costs, emphasizing the significance of perception of things, of subjectivity of the person as perceiver, as cognitive man.
Rewards are positive outcomes, referring to the receipt of resources, such as love, care, status, information, goods, security, support, and so forth. Costs refer to the expenditure of time, energy and, of course, huge amount of money in the case of philanthropy and charity.
You would terminate this relationship of the pair if there is a drastic shift in perceived costs and rewards. In other words, you will stop donating when the costs are higher than the rewards, among other factors or circumstances. What is in it for me? What are my rewards? Another reward would be status, symbolic standing, personal reputation, social location in the community, particularly in a highly stratified society in both materialist and symbolic terms.
And then you have other rewarding things like social honor, cultural honor, meaning of life. Here I am intimating existentialism, self-actualization, hierarchy of needs, and so forth. The sociology of emotions tells us one of the most profound rewards in doing good is joy, the pleasure, the enjoyment, the satisfaction, the happiness in doing good.
It is better to give than to take. What did Francis Lee tell me in the interview? He recalled his first encounter with philanthropy as a schoolboy passing by the front door of a famous charitable organization in Hong Kong, Po Leung Kuk, which was first set up to protect women:. I knew it was a charitable organization. I felt sort of interested in it even I had no idea about its service. So I went back and searched for some information about the Kuk.
Later I learned about the historical background of the Kuk; it was a specialized organization protecting women, which has developed over the years into a comprehensive, integrated charitable organization.
I had strong interest in the Kuk, without knowing the exact reason. At that time, I told myself one day I would be going to the Kuk to give a helping hand to the needy. Francis told me that his businessman-father valued primary education very highly. But Francis was a high school drop-out. What happens to my son? My academic results were not good when I was in high school. This made me feel disappointed about the teachers and the curriculum.
I could not tolerate the stupid textbooks, they were too easy for me. This was how I grew up. So you can now imagine why I read all sorts of books except textbooks. I was so disappointed about education. During school days, I disliked going to school, which planted some sort of thoughts in me that I had never fully expressed. While growing up as a schoolboy, I showed full competence in all aspects except in my studies. For example, I was good at sports. However, my father is a very traditional man, he is very smart.
When he was very ill, he told me I would not be able to continue my studies. On the one hand, I failed in my studies. On the other hand, he could never understand why his son was so stupid. I am his only son, but we had no communication at all. How would fathers and sons communicate at that time? He was feeling intensely guilty about not having been able to treat her sickness fast enough.
He felt a lifelong guilt. His wife loved kids and she liked to spend a lot of time with them. So he built the second school to name after her. He told me that every time he went to the school, when he saw the children, he experienced the kind of deep inner joy that his wife often spoke of. In this school, this office where we did the interview , it is almost like a kind of communion between me and my wife , who is long gone, in heaven—a communication between people in this world and people in the other world.
Francis has long obtained his rewards:. I truly respected my father. He started his business from scratch. He was upright for his whole life, with an enthusiasm towards education. He helped numerous people in need. I fully understand that there was a regret deep down his heart, as he could not go to school due to the political circumstances at the time. The passing away of my beloved wife, Fanny Tsang, broke my heart.
I found myself feeling terribly guilty. There were lots of problems in the hospital. My wife was only 47 when she met her death.
In the past, she always accompanied me to the school I built for my father during weekends, sometimes with her dog. She was so kind, her colleagues loved her. Once, I saw a little girl queuing up waiting for her snack; she looked so adorable. At that moment, I made a wish to myself to build another school to remember her. That year, after Fanny passed away, I could not work at all. From that year onwards, I was officially retired, I closed down my business, sold it, and resigned from work.
My wife was enthusiastic about education. She had no sons or daughters, which made her treat her students like her own children. There are newcomers at the school every year, which is why I use this way to remember her. Both father and son did not finish high school.
Love is almighty. Love is a many-splendored thing. Francis said that he has learnt a lot from philanthropy; altruism has given him a lot, ten times more than he has given away. He is feeling indebted to altruism. He also said that Hong Kong has been very good to him; it is in Hong Kong where he made a lot of money, so he wanted to give back.
I am happy here so I want to give back. The opposite to capitalism, to him, is philanthropy, altruism, charity, giving children an education. Seen in this way, capitalism and altruism almost become two opposite ideal types, though a good sociologist would try to deconstruct the tension between the two, to balance them:. I did a wide variety of things in my life.
But among all, I find running schools the most fulfilling. When I meet and play with children, I feel exceedingly happy and excited. But I had never had any fulfillment working there. It was an unending battle. Actually, I have already resigned from many such duties these years. There, I can get in touch with things I do not usually encounter.
My horizon is broadened, which money cannot buy. Thirdly, after several years of cooperation and collaboration with my teaching and administrative staff, I believe that my team is the most outstanding one in Hong Kong.
I feel much pride to have formed such a powerful team. Money cannot buy these kinds of fulfillment and pride, and the money spent was only a minimal amount. After all, we are born and bred here in Hong Kong…. Looking at Fig. When sociologists try to explain why a loveless marriage does not end in divorce, they theorize that one should identify and look at what they call barriers. Barriers are forces that keep the husband and wife in a miserable relationship. There are probably a lot more loveless marriages out there than we would admit.
How to make sense of that? One explanation, socio-psychologically, lies in the strength of the barriers. There are a lot of sociological forces that keep the marriages intact, without the marriages transiting into divorces. Theoretically, I am saying that even if there is very little delight in a marital relationship, the existence of strong barriers, restraining forces, would create a kind of empty-shell marriage, a prison, a trap, such that the couple inside cannot or would not get out.
Sometimes staying together, remaining married legally in the eyes of community, overrides all other values, including your own happiness, the happiness of your wife, of your children.
Both of you know that you are not happy with each other, but that is not a good enough reason to get a divorce. Because there are social barriers, as the sociology of relationships has told us. For example, many of us would say that we should not divorce because it would harm the kids.
Or, we should not divorce for neighborhood respectability. Or, divorce is too much of a stigma. It is still a stigma in a lot of Chinese societies world-wide. Or because of religious reasons, people in the church may say. In other words, I ask a very sociological question here: what would others say about us getting a divorce? So far, I am drawing an analogy to compare marriage as a pair with the situation of a donor stuck with a project which he cannot drop because of barriers, or forces that keep him in and keep him from getting out.
Barriers derive themselves from the social structure. The sociology of relationships would call these barriers commitments, obligations, devotions. It is particularly so when the donor has made a public declaration, an announcement, of his charity work which takes on a force of its own and would become a new psychological force against termination of the pair relationship.
I can fail, but the schools cannot. They represent my two only loves in my life. They cannot fail, they must be the best in Hong Kong. They must continue, the show must go on, no matter what.
One cannot stop, period. Let me now tighten the screw a bit even harder. The guy is lamenting about it. Let me say, if you do not have the ability, you can learn it, but if you do not have the heart, forget about it.
Neither could Francis find a friend who would carry on for him. So he cannot pass his philanthropy to anybody else, not in the family, not outside the family either.
This is a dilemma, a real plight. In the past two months, I have not seen him as regularly as before. He was worried that he might die in the same way his wife did. He was complaining about heart murmurs, irregular heart beat, his heart condition:. This is my biggest difficulty. How can I continue my belief, enhance and glorify it?
Especially in this year, my health condition burdens me a lot. In fact, I have no idea how to deal with the problem, the problem of succession. Where could I find someone who has sentiments toward the schools? We have a team to assist such teachers. However, if you lack the heart, or you are not willing to commit yourself, or you dislike children and want to kick them out, how can you be a successful educator?
This is impossible. So, if I can find someone who has the right kind of feeling about the school, and with a better vision and health than mine, I am willing to hand my two schools over to him or her. Just like that.
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