bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

SCMP Reporter

IF HIS most ambitious plans come to fruition, Mr Charles Lee Lok-fu could well become Hongkong's answer to James Bond.

  At 69, Mr Lee is one of the territory's best known former high-ranking police chiefs. He is the man who set up the anti-triad bureau, received a number of commendations and was thought to be among the cream of Asia's finest.

  Now running a detective agency, he is about to see himself immortalised on screen.

  Mr Lee was able to take time off recently to watch as his son Anthony directed The Incorruptible - a film on one of the most exciting cases Mr Lee cracked. It is poised to be the box office crime film of the year.

  That would not surprise the genial former cop. His life reads like a movie script.

   He was born in Hongkong but left for China in 1941 to be part of the Nationalist Government's military intelligence unit, specialising in counter-espionage to make sure the Japanese did not get their hands on sensitive information.

  In 1945, after the Japanese surrendered, he was transferred to the mainland police bureau only to return to Hongkong as the communists took power in 1949. He quickly joined the Royal Hongkong Police Force as a sub-inspector. In 1953, he was transferred to a special branch but three years later major riots broke out. After he had investigated how the riots started, he was sent to Britain for further training and when he returned in 1957 he founded the Triad Society Bureau.

   By the time he retired in 1976, Mr Lee had made the rank of detective chief inspector and during his illustrious career was responsible for cracking a $7 million Hang Seng Bank raid, had six people convicted in a bizarre horse doping case, arrested a major gang and recovered a large stash of money and revolvers after a series of bank robberies which led to the murder of a police sergeant and managed to deport the biggest drug dealer in Hongkong at the time, Lee Choi-fat.

  It is specifically on the case of Lee Choi-fat that the film is based.

  ''If the movie sells and is commercially successful, maybe there will be more. They may be like a series of James Bond movies, one after the other,'' said Mr Lee.

  Anthony Lee agreed. ''The trend in movies these days anyway is more towards biographies and 'legendary' people. When my father was in the police force he was quite well known and he cracked a lot of better known cases and received a lot of exposure for them.''   Mandarin Films approached the former police chief asking him if a film could be made on Lee Choi-fat, and Mr Lee said it could - provided his son directed.

  Mr Lee said he still considered the drug dealer - who died in prison - to be one of the most heinous criminals in Hongkong's history.

  ''He is the man who introduced heroin to Hongkong. He was a member of a big Shanghai gang in the 1950s but because there was no direct evidence against him, he could not be prosecuted. We couldn't touch him,'' said Mr Lee. ONCE the Triad Society Bureau was set up, Mr Lee was given the governor's administrative powers to deport the drug dealer on charges of suspicion.

    ''We had every ground to suspect him so he was arrested and asked to leave Hongkong. He ended up in Taipei where he murdered a fellow gang member and I worked with the Taiwan police to track him down. He surfaced in Hongkong and it took me two months of pursuing him to finally find him. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder, but died in prison,'' said Mr Lee.

  It is his son's task to capture all the drama and intrigue of the case on film, on a budget of about $12 million.

  ''I wanted my father to look like Kevin Costner in The Untouchables, someone who upholds the law without prejudice. This is not hero-worshipping as I would be the first person to cringe at that so I had to stay detached,'' said Lee.

  Actor Ray Lui Leung-wai was recruited to play the part of the police officer, and the film also stars Simon Yam Tat-wah, Waise Lee Chi-hung and Anita Yuen Wing-yee.

  ''I must admit I don't know much about art or movies,'' said Mr Lee.

  ''My job was just to gather all the information and then give them my opinion. Whether they took it or not I can't say.''   The film has already played to packed houses in Taipei.

  ''I suppose I am quite happy with the finished product, although it is a bit dramatised. But that is the movie industry I guess,'' said Mr Lee.

  The Incorruptible opened in Hongkong yesterday, with the younger Lee hoping to consolidate his reputation as a director. His first film venture was a soft-porn movie called The Girl from Beijing which was made on a shoestring budget and was a ''sexploitation'', a tongue-in-cheek version of Fatal Attraction.

   A graduate of the London International Film School and the Lee Strasberg school, Lee is keeping his fingers crossed that the film will be a commercial success.

  ''We wanted to use Leslie Cheung initially, but he was busy so we turned to the current star who usually plays underworld, shady characters. This role is a total reversal for him where he will be playing the good guy.

  ''I am happy with the outcome although I wish I had more money. It was hard doing the Kai Tak airport of the 1950s with no money, so throughout the movie we focused on interior scenes rather than scenery.''   He said the film was in the noir genre, much in the style of old Hollywood detective movies.

  ''There is a lot of playing with shadows. There is action in the movie, but it is more interesting than that. It is more about how my father solved the case. The basic story is faithful to the original. It is always difficult to make a film based on reality because you have to make sure you don't alter the facts,'' he said.

  ''My father definitely has a lot of other cases we can put on screen. In any case, we want to do something stylish and a little different from the typical Hongkong film. We want the audiences to get involved with the plot and the characters,'' the director said.

  Mr Lee said watching the film right after it was made brought back many memories - some not so happy. He was given much publicity when he was shot at during an armed robbery and had to be taken to hospital, and said his job was dangerous at the best of times.

  ''But see how things have changed. In our days, nobody stole a car and if a police officer was shot, the public was shocked. These days, it happens all the time and they are not written about as much in the papers.

  ''Still, I have confidence that the Hongkong police will have ways and means to crack down on the current high level of crime. I don't worry about it.''   Mr Lee said being a police officer today was ''so hard core''.

  ''Before, there was almost a sense of romantic adventure to it. I think people have become desensitised by the media. No longer does art imitate life. Now, life imitates art,'' he said.

  After his retirement Mr Lee ''did nothing for three years'' before setting up his detective agency, Unicorn Investigation. He stays away from debt collecting and other ''sleazy'' assignments.

  ''We do investigations, and once we find out anything that may relate to criminal activities, we get the police on it. It's borderline stuff, investigation of commercial and insurance fraud. It's not what other detective agencies might do, but at least we stick to the law,'' he said.



The Incorruptible Untouchable