Gettin’ It Done
it may not be perfect but Trevor Choi’s second (?) feature is a beacon of truly indie-minded filmmaking.
Smashing Frank
Director: Trevor Choi • Writer: Trevor Choi
Starring: Hedwig Tam, Locker Lam, Kaki Sham, Renci Yeung, Ben Yuen, Alan Yeung
Hong Kong • 1hr 28mins
Opens Hong Kong April 17 • IIB
Grade: B-
No matter what you may think of director Trevor Choi Hong-ying’s films – his first to hit screens was the uneven Fresh Off Markham last year – you can’t accuse him of sitting around on his ass and doing nothing. Nope, Choi went out and found a way to get Markham off the ground and gather a few friends to market and release it (mostly) on their own. Now comes Smashing Frank | 搗破法蘭克, supposedly made well before Markham – via crowdfunding no less – but a long, long time in post-production. That slow march to screens is going to help given that the film’s lead, Hedwig Tam Sin-yin, is on her way to an awards appearance and some serious buzz when Oliver Chan’s Montages of a Modern Motherhood opens next week.
In Smashing Frank, no one called Frank is smashed. The film is an intensely urban, intensely Hong Kong mash-up of Dead Presidents, Point Break, Heat and the legend of Robin Hood – at least at the very end it is. It’s a rare thing for me to admit, but… Smashing Frank could have added a few more minutes to its running time to really flesh out the ideas Choi clearly has on his mind: corrupt power structures, particualry churches, late-stage capitalist rot, unequal application of the law and Gen Z nihilism. That’s a lot for one plate in under 90 minutes (bless it, nonetheless) and the film would have been stronger if Choi had killed one of his darlings or went back to the crowd for some extra cash for eight more minutes.
Umm…cover your faces
Smashing Frank starts with Ayla (Tam) and her partner in crime, literally, Hugo (Locker Lam Ka-hei, The Prosecutor) knocking off an armoured car and making off with many dollars’ worth of jewellery, but more importantly tagging the scene with “Frank” and uploading their antics to YouTube. Ayla and Hugo are old friends, and they’re happy with things as they are until they find out who they robbed: Pillar of the community, church elder and alleged money launderer Ho Ka-wang (Hong Kong’s fast emerging go-to bad guy Ben Yuen Foo-wah). He’s a classic hypocritical type that has the shit beaten out of suspected whistle-blowers and keeps his more genuine church leaders like Father Tang (Alan Yeung Wai-lun, Crisis Negotiators) in line through fear. Ayla would love nothing better than to really stick it to Ho, so she gets her and Hugo’s wheelman and videographer, the timid To Chun (Kaki Sham Ka-ki), to rope in his ex-girlfriend and full-time hustler Chelsea (under the radar standout Renci Yeung Si-wang, A Guilty Conscience) to help plan a currency shop heist for the ages and transform Frank into urban folk heroes of a sort. This is where Choi taps his Hong Kong crime thriller roots becuase of course it all goes to hell.
For all its faults, and Smashing Frank does have them, there’s a quick-and-dirty, DIY vibe at play that’s endearing as well as an authenticity to the characters few directors have the spine to put on screen. Ayla and Hugo feel real, and the four thieves have a dynamic that’s recognisable no matter how old you are. No one wants to admit it goes on here, but yeah, blunts do get passed when friends sit around and shoot the shit – especially the frustrated ones that see little in the way of a future. Despite the fact that Frank lives and dies by likes, shares and subscribes, DOP Alfred Pong Ho-wai (My Prince Edward) resists the urge to deploy shakycam at every turn, and mimics digital life only when it’s most needed and will be most effective. Pong and Choi know when to slow things down and just let Tam and Lam be pals, with in jokes and an innate understanding of what each of them needs. On top of the carefully unpolished visuals is a keen exploitation of Hong Kong’s back alleys, overpasses and slopes that make great action backdrops, even if the action is at a minimum. Smashing Frank would have been well served by spending a bit more time telling us who these people are; Ayla is really the only one that has any kind of backstory. What motivated them to agree to the heist? Where are they from? We’re left to fill in the blanks on our own – very often just fine – but the connective tissue between Frank (and the army it inspires, which quickly vanishes and that’s a movie in itself) and its rage towards Ho and his ilk is stringy at best. There’s so much potential in that missing eight minutes it makes you want to write a cheque.