By the Book
First-timer Jack Ng brings together a killer cast for the latest in what’s quickly becoming a Hong Kong movie mini-trend: Rose Coloured Law.
A Guilty conscience
Director: Jack Ng • Writer: Jack Ng, Jay Cheung
Starring: Dayo Wong, Renci Yeung, Ho Kai-wa, Tse Kwan-ho, Louise Wong, Fish Liew, Adam Pak, Bowie Lam, Sheldon Lo, Michael Wong, Vincent Kok
Hong Kong • 2hrs 13mins
Opens Hong Kong January 21 • IIB
Grade: B
When Louise Wong Dan-ni, playing wrongly accused child abuser, murderer and unfairly labelled golddigger Jolene shows up as a hardened, chain-smoking, (possibly) shiv-carrying con in Jack Ng Wai-lun’s A Guilty Conscience | 毒舌大狀, we know the film has taken a turn into bombast, and so we’re prepared for it when reformed glamour boy judge Adrian Lam (Dayo Wong Chi-wah) starts with the courtroom theatrics. As is the case with most legal thrillers, there is no real “legalling” in A Guilty Conscience. No lawyer gets to grandstand in court the way movie lawyers do. Legal thrillers are usually only peripherally about the law and due process. They’re almost always about broader, unaddressed issues and shining a light on larger injustices and inequalities. And in Hong Kong, judging from the success of last year’s The Sparring Partner, they’re about the good old halcyon days.
A Guilty Conscience isn’t based on a true, sensational story like Partner, but it’s sturdy, holiday movie-making (and a potential franchise) that gleefully swerves into Perry Mason territory and whisks viewers away for a couple of hours. It’s also got a couple of fist-pumping “See!” moments thanks to the heavies being garden variety rich asshole types with the power to manipulate the law to their advantage and to hell with the rest of us, and it’s chock full of enough Hong Kong cinema stalwarts – Michael Wong Man-tak, Bowie Lam Bo-yi, Vincent Kok Tak-chiu – to render the final result something of a warm sweater. It’s familiar, comfy and reminds you that sometimes the stars align in your favour. It’s not a South Korean level of fist-shaking righteousness (because they just DGAF), but it’s close.
Not a con’s manicure
A Guilty Conscience starts with Lam while he’s on the bench, and clearly Hong Kong’s laziest magistrate. We come to learn that he’s done everything right; went to the right schools and did the work, but he’s been punished by banishment to small claims court because he doesn’t tow the line. His boss simply doesn’t like him. So in a self-fulfilling prophecy, he does not give his job the respect he should. Eventually he’s tempted into the private sector and defence work, and finds himself hobnobbing with the elite, and doing the bare minimum for his clients. But damned if he doesn’t have a Rolex. When Jolene’s case crosses his desk, it puts him in direct conflict with a powerful tycoon family, the Chungs, which Lam leverages for his own gain. He’s cocky and overly confident in his fast and loose barrister skills, despite warnings from his assistant, Evelyn Fong (Renci Yeung Si-wing, The First Girl I Loved), that this could go sideways, fast. It does, and his recklessness lands Jolene in the clink for 15 years.
That’s Lam’s wake-up call, and as a way to atone for his transgression, he gives up the corner office in Central for a broke-down walk-up in Mong Kok serving the underserved. He’s got help from Prince (ERROR’s Ho Kai-wa) as his investigator, a kid with a dodgy background and a felonious father. Redemption really flirts with Lam when a deathbed confession by a witness from Jolene’s trial two years before seems to absolve her, and her case is set for retrial. Initially she tells Lam to get stuffed, but (because this is a movie) she gives him One. Last. Chance. Evelyn reluctantly comes back on board, and the three of them start the monumental task of dismantling the finely constructed house of cards the Chungs – Jolene’s shady husband Desmond (discount Takeshi Kaneshiro, Adam Pak Tin-nam, Breakout Brothers) and his ice cold wife Victoria (Fish Liew Chi-yu, Limbo) – and their fixer James Tung (Michael Wong Man-tak) have built on half-truths, intimidation and cash. They also have to contend with supremely talented prosecutor Kam Yuen-sham (Tse Kwan-ho, the mad doctor in Warriors of Future), who happens to be a stickler for the law. That’s important.
SPL and Anita writer Ng, making his feature debut, and similarly novice co-writer Jay Cheung Wan-ching dive right in and immediately start ticking off all the great legal thriller boxes: lawyers jump up with objections, the judge warns counsel to behave, sudden evidence comes to light, sudden witnesses are found, the rich assholes find a way to keep the defence from presenting its case. Lam needs a pep talk about right and wrong, the beauty of the law and why we all need access to it – he gets that from his best cop buddy (Bowie Lam). The prosecutor sees the light. There’s nothing new here with the exception of context. Notably, A Guilty Conscience isn’t contemporary; it takes place in a time when there was lawful and unlawful, which could be looked up in a book. Make of that what you will.
Even in the story that trades in convention there’s room for fun, and the strong cast is all in. Wong is still most effective when he’s funny, but Tse brings an unexpected level of gravitas to Kam. He’s invested in the law, and butchering it offends his impeccably dresses sensibilities. He’s the one who inspires the fist-pump, even though in reality his behaviour would get him tossed out of the Law Society. It’s wish fulfilment, and that’s fine. Louise Wong is a little less convincing as woman who’s this close to having prison ink, but she’s still one of the industry’s most intersting emerging actors, whose unconventional physicality makes her stand out in the right ways. Michael Wong is Michael Wong. Bless his heart. Ng and DOP Anthony Pun manage more than a few stand-out scenes, and exploit the confined spaces to maximum effect. Chief among them is the closing stretch, when the Chungs decide their best course of action is a show of passive aggressive force, stacking the spectator gallery with blue-suited allies and pushing out the press, followed the next day by an empty gallery when their interests are no longer at issue. The other is a silent passage where Victoria goes to see Jolene in prison, decked out in fire engine red, and sits down to just stare at her for the duration of a cigarette. It’s a massive flex and Liew is gloriously terrifying in a scene that reunites the Anita co-stars. More of these two please. How about a Hong Kong remake of Bound? Hurry up and take my money for that one. — DEK