Review | The Goldfinger movie review: Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Andy Lau reunite for glossy Hong Kong crime epic directed by Infernal Affairs co-writer Felix Chong

This story is based on the Carrian property empire scandal in 1980s Hong Kong and follows the misadventures of Henry Ching, based on Carrian founder George Tan

Andy Lau plays an Independent Commission Against Corruption inspector out to bring to justice con man Ching (played by Tony Leung) in this lavish production

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Tony Leung Chiu-wai as Henry Ching in a still from “The Goldfinger” (category IIA, Cantonese), a story from director Felix Chong based on the real-life 1980s Hong Kong scandal of the Carrian property empire.

Published: 9:45am, 21 Dec 2023Updated: 9:47am, 31 Dec 2023

3.5/5 stars

Four years after he dominated the Hong Kong Film Awards with Project Gutenberg, a twisty crime thriller whose narrative sleight of hand proved a bit too similar to the 1995 noir classic The Usual Suspects for some viewers’ comfort, Felix Chong Man-keung is back with an even more adventurous stunt.

Marketed as the reunion of Infernal Affairs co-stars Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau Tak-wah after 20 years, this period epic, written and directed by Chong, a co-screenwriter of that trilogy, pushes the limit of how far a mesmerising charade of larger-than-life criminals can play out without getting to the substance of their characters.

It amounts to both an innocuous introduction and a potential spoiler to point out that The Goldfinger is based on the real-life financial scandal of the Carrian property empire, which enjoyed a meteoric rise to power in the early 1980s but suffered a spectacular collapse in 1983, following an economic downturn the previous year.

Leung has a field day hamming it up as the charismatic con man Henry Ching – a stand-in for Carrian founder George Tan, who arrived in Hong Kong as a bankrupt Singaporean in the 1970s and swiftly built up his own international conglomerate via an extraordinary series of investment gambles, fraud and corruption.

Some of The Goldfinger’s most intriguing scenes arrive early, as when Ching swindles Tai Bo’s cocky property investor out of millions; or when he hires his first secretary, Carmen (Charlene Choi Cheuk-yin), and names his company after her – only to push her into the arms of Michael Ning’s influential stockbroker to further his scheme.

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