Tiger Cage (1988)

Tiger Cage (1988)
Chinese Title:  特警屠龍
Translation: SWAT Dragon Slaying

 

Starring: Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau, Carol Cheng Yu-Ling, Simon Yam Tat-Wah, Irene Wan Pik-Ha, Donnie Yen Ji-Dan, Leung Kar-Yan, Ng Man-Tat, Vincent Lyn, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, Yuen Shun-Yi, Yuen Cheung-Yan, Michael Woods, Stephen Berwick
Director: Yuen Woo-Ping
Action Director: Yuen Shun-Yee, Yuen Cheung-Yan, Yuen Yat-Choh, Donnie Yen, Paul Wong

 

It took several years for Yuen Woo-Ping to really adapt to the modernization of Hong Kong action in the 1980s. Even after Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung (and audiences in general) moved onto more stunt-driven action fare, Yuen Woo-Ping was still doing kung fu comedies (eg. Drunken Tai Chi) and his kung fu-sorcery-comedies (eg. Shaolin Drunkard and Taoism Drunkard). With the exception of the breakdancing oddity Mismatched Couples starring Donnie Yen, it wasn’t until 1988 that YWP really got with the times—the same could also be said about Lau Kar-Leung.

The resulting project, Tiger Cage, is interesting in that it was leagues away from anything he had done since his career as director took off in 1978. In fact, it is easily one of the bleakest action films of that period, even moreso than your typical blood-soaked John Woo bullet ballet. It’s a film in which cops doing their job—busting criminals—throws them into a downward spiral of violence because not even they themselves can be trusted.

We open with a drug deal being brokered between the supplier, Swatow Hsiung (Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, of Twin Dragons and Crippled Avengers), and a trusted buyer of his, Hsiu (Leung Kar-Yan, of The Victim and The Thundering Mantis). Hsiu turns out to be an undercover officer, and tonight’s the night that his team has planned a raid on Hsiung’s operations. A huge gunfight erupts between Hsiu’s team and Hsiung’s lackeys, leaving most of the latter dead, including his brother (Yuen Shun-Yee, of Miracle Fighters and Iron Monkey). Hsiung gets away, but it goes without saying that he’s going to want revenge.

Now, let’s meet Hsiu’s team first: Hsiu himself answers to Inspector Michael Huang (Simon Yam, of Bullet to the Head and Doctor Lamb), whose job it is to take the brunt of his superior’s criticisms while the team does its job. Below him is Inspector Shirley Ho (Carol Cheng, of Operation Condor and Burning Sensation), who is also Hsiu’s fiancée. They’re engaged to be married in a few days, so you know that they’re destined for marital bliss. More or less on Hsiu’s level is department veteran “Uncle” Te (Ng Man-Tat, of Holy Weapon and Heroes Among Heroes). Below Hsiu are the two younger officers, Fan Shun-Yu (Jackie Cheung, of High Risk and Future Cops) and Terry (Donnie Yen, of Ip Man and Iron Monkey 2). Both men are idealistic and impulsive, although Terry is a bit harder to control than Fan, even though his fighting skills are superior.

Anyway, on the eve of Hsiu and Shirley’s wedding, Swatow Hsiung shows up unannounced as Hsiu is getting in his car to go to (presumably) his bachelor send-off and blows the man away with a 12-guage shotgun. Hsiu succumbs to his wounds in Shirley’s arms—she was trying on her wedding dress at the moment—so a bloody wedding dress and an incomplete declaration of “I love you” are her final memories of her beloved. The rest of the team immediate opt for the “police brutality” solution as they put the screws on all the local hoodlums in order to find out where Hsiung is. Finally, a ruse involving blowtorch torture is able to loosen one guy’s lips and they find out he’s about to skip town.

The team converges on the docks and a big fight breaks out before they finally subdue their man and take him into custody. But…Swatow Hsiung has an ace of his sleeve. You see, his mentor in the drug world (the director Yuen Woo-Ping in a cameo) let him in on a little secret: Uncle Te is involved with an American gang of drug pushers in an operation known as “American Ginseng.” Hsiung mentions the operation to Te as he’s leading him to the squad car, prompting him to sneakily empty his revolver, slip it into Hsiung’s hands, and get his colleagues to respond, resulting in some police-assisted murder.

Normally, that would be it and the team would go on to their next case. But when Hsiung started shooting off his mouth, Fan Shun-Yu was in earshot of the conversation. He now suspects Uncle Te of some underhanded dealings and starts tailing him, looking for evidence. He eventually does find it, although he leaves his camcorder in the car that day when he’s out flirting with his girlfriend, Amy (Irene wan). Terry is also in the car, and innocently watches the video in hopes of finding something to make fun of his partner about. What he sees is a drug deal involving Uncle Te, who happens to be Terry’s mentor.

Although Fan’s sense of justice can make him a little unhinged at times, he has some modicum of self control. Not Terry. Terry tracks down his mentor to another drug exchange with some American criminals (Michael Woods and Stephen Berwick, both of In the Line of Duty IV) and tries to arrest both them and Uncle Te on the spot. What he does is get himself killed, at which point the cycle of violence between the good cops, bad cops and criminals really starts to spiral out of control.

This film’s in-name-only sequel has become a Hong Kong action classic for its frequent fight scenes and superior fight scenes involving Donnie Yen. This one reaches similar heights, albeit for different reasons. There is a fair amount of action in it, although Donnie Yen himself only gets one prolonged fight scene in the middle—it is a doozy, though. The rest of the action consists of gunfights, explosions, painful stuntwork, and fighting that can be best described as “choroegraphed brutality.” Of note is a particularly brutal showdown between Ng Man-Tat, Jackie Cheung and Michael Woods in an apartment filled with gas, which involves broken furniture and a baseball bat. There is some limited martial arts at the end, including a brief fight between Jackie Cheung and the lead American drug dealer, played by Vincent Lyn (Blonde Fury and Operation Condor). But the Donnie Yen sequence is the high point in that particular department.

Where Tiger Cage really shines is in its bleak tone, which gradually reveals black and white to be separated by numerous shades of grey. When Uncle Te is forced to orchestrate Hsiung’s death on the fly, it is initially believed to be him protecting his own interests. But as the film progresses, more people on the police force are revealed to be involved in the American Ginseng operation. And because of the rank of those people—and the ignorance of the more righteous cops like Fan and Terry—they are always two steps ahead of the good guys, even once their façade falls. It is only through a mixture of luck and some craziness on Fan’s part that they are able to survive until it’s time for the climax to begin.

The thing is, the film treats police corruption almost like a systemic problem, the natural evolution of one’s initial idealism into something more self-centered because police work pays little and nobody really cares about your well being (unless you get killed on duty and someone wants to make a political speech about it). We even learn at one point that Hsiu himself was on the take, in a scene where Shirley opens his personal drawer and finds a bank statement worth millions and several forged passports. We never learn where he got all the extra money—perhaps he simply kept the money he made posing as a drug pusher--just that even the most honest policemen might have some skeletons in their closet.

Tiger Cage is very much the sort of movie that Sha Po Lang (aka Killzone) was trying to both pay homage to and update back in 2005, when Hong Kong action cinema was in a steep decline. Both films deal with the unending cycle of violence between dedicated cops (who often skirt the limits of the law) and the drug gangs, who have little consideration for human life. Sha Po Lang feels a bleaker film overall because of its ending, but at least its cops are stretching the rules to compensate for holes in the system that allow the evil to thrive.

Tiger Cage has an even more cynical outlook on human nature and the “infallibility” of man’s institutions of law and order. The ability for Good to prevail, especially once evil infiltrates its walls, is simply a matter of chance. Much of that cynicism continues to this very day, both in Hong Kong (where many view the police as tools of the CCP to suppress democracy and render the Basic Law void) and in the United States, where extreme Leftist groups proclaim “Defund the Police” while many on the Right see the FBI as little more than a tool to serve its leaders’ own interests and keep the elites in power. And all this coming from the guy who gave us Drunken Master is nothing short of impressive.