Director: Herman Yau

Starring: Danny Lee, Hui Shiu-hung, Brian Ireland, Lam Suet, Fung Hark-on, Kenneth Low

Featuring: Law Koon-lan, Alfred Cheung, Turbo and Lee Siu-kei

In what could have been an otherwise routine cops n’ gangsters flick, Shark Busters gains a more topical edge under Herman Yau’s direction. Presenting a continued political edge in the From The Queen To The Chief Executive director’s work, the film may be most appreciated by a middle-aged local audience whose confidence in the HKSAR’s fortunes has been shaken over recent years.

Danny Lee heads the cast as TC Lee, a senior policeman whose mounting debts are making headlines in the local press. Lee’s not the only person in trouble at his police station, where a handful of colleagues are paying off the bank or, worse, are becoming locked into repayments to gangland debt collectors. Organised crime has been moving deeper into the personal finance market, hidden behind a legitimate-looking bank-like facade. One particularly nasty institution is set up by gangster Chan Ho-lung (Lam Suet), emboldened with confidence that the government will drive more citizens into economic hardship and therefore into need for their services. When Lee and his colleagues become caught in the loan sharks’ spiraling interest charges and organised pressure tactics, they become vigilantes and fight back.

Political and social comment in Shark Busters tends to be voiced by its characters, not least in Lam Suet thanking Tung Chee-hwa’s re-elected government for rising unemployment. Danny Lee’s character is saddled with negative assets because he bought property on government assurances that the housing market had bottomed-out (it hadn’t). Hui Shiu-hung’s cop character meanwhile heads into major debt because he bought into the rampant speculation — buying expensive housing primarily for quick and profitable resale — that existed before the property bubble burst. Elsewhere in the film police are seen subject to intense public scrutiny, the thugs appear so confident that they collect debt in a police canteen, and unsubtitled newspaper reports at the end of the film bring up police suicides, which have risen in recent years.

While the main strength of Shark Busters lies in its sense of timeliness for local viewers and reflection of social issues, not all aspects of Shark Busters are as hot as the topics. The production is slow getting to the punch when the police strike against the loan sharks, some of the humour doesn’t click and the transfer of Lee’s debt management from a bank to Chan’s cohorts isn’t suitably clear. Effort put into the largely guitar-based music accompanying the film pays off, however, with Brother Hung’s rap/metal theme song about loan sharks helping to the pick up the pace towards the end.

The character choices make for an interesting change from the 2002 norm, with no young stars cast in significant roles. Danny Lee and Hui Shiu-hung as a fellow cop present quieter home moments reasonably well while Lam Suet is an attention grabber throughout as the main roughie, with constant bleeping emphasising his foul language without earning the film a Category III rating. Brian Ireland is given the script’s most novel character to play — a rich gun fanatic lawyer who joins the station as an auxiliary police officer yet also represents the loan sharks — and enlivens the production with his enthusiastic performance. Other actors putting in pleasing turns are Law Koon-lan and kung-fu veteran and filmmaker Fung Hark-on.

Film Review By: Adam Welsey

You can buy this DVD now at: www.hongkong-store.com