4 Star

Hong Kong, The Land of Opportunity.

From the writer of Infernal Affairs comes a story that seems stranger than fiction, but The Goldfinger is based on real events in Hong Kong in the 1980s. Felix Chong (The Counterfeiter, Overheard 2 & 3) as a corporation rises to stratospheric heights, then plummets due to a financial crash. One man is in the sights of the ICAC. This sees the reunion of Tony Leung (Where The Wind Blows, The Grandmaster), and Andy Lau (RUNNING OUT OF TIME 1 & 2, SHOCK WAVE: HONG KONG DESTRUCTION), as they show how the sparks fly when they meet.

In the early 1970s, construction engineer Henry Ching (Tony Leung) is trying to follow the trail of where all the cement goes, and it leads him across the sea to Hong Kong. He wants to see if he can turn his luck around and build people a home to live in.

At this time in Hong Kong, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) had been formed and after rooting out corrupt police officials, they are feeling the wrath of the police force as they picket their offices. Things escalate and the police break in to the ICAC’s offices looking for personnel files to see what they have on the police officers. This brings in Lau Kai-yuen (Andy Lau), principal investigator of the ICAC who manages to calm everything down. But this protest brings an amnesty to minor offences committed before 1st January 1977.

Meanwhile, Ching is trying to get a job at a construction company, but he is having no luck, even when he uses his ethnicity as leverage he is still rebuked. That is until the youngest son of the bosses concubine K.K Tsang (Simon Yam, Ip Man, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life) steps in, recognising how hard it is to make your way in this city, and with older half-brothers who have been bullying him all his life he sees a kindred spirit in Ching.

K.K has been lumbered with a piece of land with no electricity or water supplies and is trying to build twenty-four houses. Mr Wu (Tai-Bo, LADY REPORTER, Encounter of the Spooky Kind) is interested in buying the land, but his price is too low, so K.K brings in Ching to pose as another buyer, with an inflated price, to nudge Wu into raising his price. This fails, but Wu is intrigued by this man who wants to pay well over the asking price for the land, does he know something he doesn’t?

This encounter leads to him and K.K and Wu making lots of money, as the former engineer gets into the property market. K.K funds Ching’s early projects as they both make money, then branching out he takes on personal assistant Carmen Cheung (Charlene Choi, The Twins Effect, Just 1 Day), and the Carmen group is born.

Watch as Carmen and Ching take on Hong Kong, the British colonials, and the rest of the World as they build an empire, but was it all done legally? That is Lau’s job to find out.

Hong Kong is no place for daydreaming.

Watch in awe at the audacity of one man, and one man’s determination to bring one man down.

Trinity CineAsia presents The Goldfinger releasing on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from 20 May