‘I Did It My Way’ Review
There’s not a lot worth noting in Jason Kwan’s latest film, I Did It My Way. A collection of Hong Kong crime film tropes, littered with heroic bloodshed archetypes that fail to move the needle in excitement, Kwan strings together a familiar sequence of events with some enjoyable, albeit silly flourishes. While it attempts to breathe some excitement into its stale plotting through a barrage of bullets and a heavier focus on the criminal’s perspective, it, unfortunately, isn’t enough to save what is a very safe and predictable screenplay that underwhelms at almost every potentially exciting moment.
The main allure of Kwan’s film is its cast, which consists of a veritable who’s who of Hong Kong cinema. George Lam (Andy Lau) is a lawyer for drug dealers who is now linked to a drug trafficking ring that has become massively successful in Hong Kong thanks to the ease of purchasing drugs via the internet with the use of cryptocurrencies and has become the #1 target by Hong Kong police. A Cybercrime Investigation Unit, helmed by Eddie Fong (Eddie Peng), now has its sights set on curbing this drug operation once and for all while revealing the identity of the mysterious leader, codenamed ‘Boss.’ Reluctantly assigned by his boss, Chung (Simon Yam), to work with the narcotics unit led by Yuen (Lam Suet), Eddie will stop at nothing to prevent drugs from entering Hong Kong.
Again, it’s all familiar territory for those who have watched a few Johnnie To or John Woo films, or films from the actors included in the film. The main conflict is between George and his friend Sau Ho (Lam Ka-Tung), whose been kept at arm’s length from George’s drug dealing operation but close in almost every other regard. However, Sau’s allegiance to George isn’t as cut-and-dry as they believe and their relationship is put to the test when Eddie’s cybercrime unit begins prodding at George’s business, causing George’s loved ones to begin appearing in harm’s way. With a wedding on the horizon and a baby due soon, George’s relationships become crucial to navigating the web of crime he’s trapped himself within. The emphasis on trying to situate a life for your family while embroiled in a life of crime is the film’s most compelling concept, but the allegiance between Sau and George takes precedence and leaves the film with a far less engrossing narrative.
It’s not a remarkable performance, but Lau’s character’s family-driven motivation offers a shred of humanity that Lau manages to mine much deeper than the betrayal that befalls characters consistently throughout I Did It My Way. It feels like many of the actors present in the film have had varying levels of commitment to previous projects, and that’s still the case with Kwan’s film. Where Lau stands out and helps carry the film alongside Lam Ka-Tung, everyone else could not be less interesting. Their characters are generally uninteresting to begin with, but Yam in particular feels like he’s done this role so many times that he couldn’t be bothered to bring more than his presence. They’re just performances devoid of anything meaningful at the center, and that’s because their characters are all one-dimensional.
There’s also an inherent silliness to I Did It My Way that’s immediately apparent in the opening set-up as it establishes “the dark web is a major frontier for cybercrime…” and then later in the film even shows people buying drugs online through phone apps as they seem to race to buy as many drugs as possible. It’s absurd, but the kind of silly misunderstanding of how technology might be applied to this world that lets the film have a sense of identity. There’s even a visual representation of a DDoS attack that occurs multiple times throughout the movie that is made funnier when shown alongside actual gunfire happening between people. Had the film leaned into that, it may have at least felt slightly self-aware and entertaining as a result, but the film is far too self-serious to strike the right tonal balance.
Fortunately, there are also some slick action sequences throughout I Did It My Way that compensate for an otherwise droll execution of double-crosses and undercover shenanigans. The direction from Chin Ka-lok in the action is kinetic and has a few shining moments of inspired choreography. There’s also a way that some of the sequences are edited that lets the film play with the dual identities of some of its characters, existing within the gray area between criminal and lawful. The big misstep in most of the big set pieces, outside of the finale, is that the music tends to be underwhelming and sucks the excitement out of every window someone is thrown through or a gunshot barely missed. That and some clunky geography mire scenes that could have helped the film overcome its other shortcomings.
The reality is that Hong Kong action films, specifically within the crime genre like this, can be a real mixed bag nowadays. They’re predictable and dependent on tight direction and nuanced performances - something which is hard to get when the screenplay is so black-and-white in its depiction of criminals-versus-police. There is chemistry between Lau and Lam as their characters wrestle with their personal and professional differences, and the broad outline of a white-knuckle crime thriller is somewhere in I Did It My Way that interrogates that relationship in a more meaningful way. Unfortunately, what is on the screen is not compelling enough and wastes a massive ensemble cast amidst brief flashes of creativity.
