Mr. Shangkong | ICAC probe of ex-boss may turn into a blockbuster
The controversy over former ICAC boss Timothy Tong Hin-ming is eerily reminiscent of parts of Cold War – or is the other way around?
I’ve often remarked that all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. That may not be exactly how I phrased it, but it sums it up. Take a bow, William Shakespeare, who wrote down the enduring lines centuries before the drama I’m referring to started playing out to an enthralled Hong Kong audience.
When the news came out that Hong Kong’s anti-graft agency had launched a corruption investigation into its former chief Timothy Tong Hin-ming, many local movie fans quickly pointed out that it was eerily reminiscent of Cold War, a film that beautifully summed up the complexity of Hong Kong politics.
The movie, that won a total of nine awards including best actor, best film, best director and best screenplay at the 32nd Hong Kong Film Award ceremony in April, describes top Hong Kong police fighting local terrorists who want to challenge the authority of the police. The plot includes a subplot in which the Independent Commission Against Corruption probes a deputy police commissioner suspected of links to a series of terrorist attacks.
In fact, some trailers for the film ask a very clear question: Which is more important to Hong Kong – the police or the ICAC? Many movie fans said that intrigued them enough to watch the film when it hit our cinemas late last year.
A highlight of the movie is the cameo appearance of Alex Tsui Ka-kit, a former top ICAC official who was fired by the agency about 20 years ago for reasons that were never fully explained. Tsui played an ICAC supervisor in the movie.
Tsui was named the Best New Performer at the 32nd Hong Kong Film Award ceremony for his role, with critics describing him as “very realistic and highly professional.”