Why Nick Cheung began this film in Namibia is obvious – he wanted to show his self-directed character staring down an aggressive hyena scavenging in the African wilderness. Sure, facing off with an uncaged hyena will make an impression. Yet, this was a disgustingly indulgent moment. Not only is the director portraying himself as a fearless primal brute, but this film has only one other scene set in Africa – the one with Nick Cheung leaving it; 98% of the film actually takes place in Hong Kong.
Yu Qiu (Cheung) is quite the ass-kicking undercover cop. Most will not stage a rumble in a laundromat, but if that’s where ya gotta go to clean up crime, that’s where ya gotta go (:rimshot:). This skirmish is staged as gang warfare. No uniforms, just bad guys fighting for territory and whatever it is they sell or process or buy or buy or sell or process or process or sell or buy. Doesn’t matter, the fight scene is very stylish and a lot of people die, but not Yu.
It’s a shame the ultra-violent combat is the focus of this picture, because while the fights were indeed stylish, they were often difficult to follow, and bad guys shooting and knifing slightly-less bad guys represents 90% of this picture. The car stunts on the other hand … The Trough gave us some pretty awesome car stunts, one in which a car pursued down a narrow road pivots and deliberately crashes at a 90 degree angle thus perpendicularly blocking all pursuing cars; the driver got out, jacked the nearest non-blocked car and sped off, free from the chase. The other, however, was a true masterpiece of stunt driving. I mean on the order of: Fast & Furious, are you paying attention? A car speeds
head on at an intersection playing chicken with two parallel driving cop cars heading from the opposite way. When they get to the intersection, the target vehicle starts to turn, making the police cars react. When all three meet in the middle, they are rotating in unison just inches from each other, the target car in a cop car sandwich all doing at least 50, but slowed for the camera to let us see the effect. The movement is so brilliant, I’m guessing it might be CGI and not real stunt driving; I honestly couldn’t tell.
All of this is just subplot exhibitionism. The only real thing in this film is Yu going after The Boss whomever The Boss turns out to be. The Boss has never been photographed! It could be Yu; it could be you. The Trough is a film which has a lot of focus on detail without letting the viewer know what’s going on until Act III. That’s not good enough for me; I kind of like to know why people are killing other people … or at least what the consequences are. When we finally find out, well, yeah, payoff. Good enough payoff? Not sure. I’ll give The Trough this much; I haven’t seen a climax in a hot air balloon since Around the World in 80 Days.
A lot of boys like to play “Who’s mean-ah?”
Squaring off where the crass is always careen-ah
You want to go rough?
Show the world you’re tough?
Go rassle with a hyena
Not Rated, 112 Minutes
Director: Nick Cheung
Writer: Nick Cheung
Genre: Taking down the big hyena
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Crime junkies
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People easily confused
Great Say Anything reference, especially as it was said by a martial artist.