This year, Herman Yau and Andy Lau teamed up again for the May Day movie. These two most prolific men in Hong Kong movies did not make explosive events like "Shock Wave", but staged a cosplay of financial games. The word "game" in the title is true.
"Gold Hunting Game" poster
Andy Lau is not defusing bombs this time, but is defusing stockholders' wallets! In "Gold Hunting Game", he plays the "financial wizard" Zhang Tode, who can be called the "god of the stock market" - wearing gold-rimmed glasses, shaking his white hair, and following the golden words of "The Old Man and the Sea" as his motto. He wears a different suit in every scene, which makes him look handsome and innovative.
Andy Lau plays "The Master"
Ou Hao plays Gao Han, a rookie in the workplace. He uses connections to enter the investment industry. His resume is shredded by the female CEO on the spot, and he is forced to eat dog food to show his loyalty. The process of the "dragon slayer becomes a dragon" is like a fast-forward version of the workplace metamorphosis in the movie. In the face of conscience and making money, he struggles, hesitates, loses his footing, gains benefits, and becomes arrogant - but he quickly turns back, makes a comeback, and wins the first battle.
Ou Hao interprets the financial bull and horse's counterattack
Ni Ni plays Anna, the confidante whose father jumped off a building due to stock speculation, but she is obsessed with the financial tycoon and her love life is more ups and downs than a candlestick chart.
Ni Ni is still charming
Huang Yi plays a scheming CEO who is adept at trading power for sex. Her exaggerated and domineering lines can generate emoticons in every scene.
Huang Yi plays the overbearing female president
Of course, there are also important NPCs, who probably contributed the most realistic plot that the audience can empathize with. A retired man bet his pension, a takeaway boy fantasized about getting rich, but in the end the stock market collapsed, and there was widespread grief.
Fortunately, the master and apprentice found their conscience and used "Market Crash 2.0" to kill the villain, but looking at the court verdict and the green K-line chart, the audience can only sigh: This is not a business war to hunt for gold, it is clearly a child's play to hunt the audience's IQ.
In the movie, the investment company that stirs up the international capital situation has its listing plan completed by an intern alone; the gambling agreement worth tens of billions of dollars is signed by the company boss in one year without the need for any legal assessment of any risks or going through any board of directors process; the national high-tech industrial technology is so valuable that foreign capital is wary, but Zhang Tod can manipulate the stock market with just a few words of "leaking news" and "dumping the market" to make the stock price jump up and down without any resistance; it seems that there is only such an investment bank in the entire capital market, and a college graduate can complete the due diligence work of the industry leader in minutes... All the plots cannot stand scrutiny, and all the ups and downs of the capital war are as light as a child's play.
Movie Stills
To be honest, before I walked into the cinema, I had expectations for this movie. The traditional Hong Kong movies with police and gangsters, car chases, and gunfights have made people aesthetically tired. As the financial center of Asia, Hong Kong has also produced many good stories about financial themes. Johnnie To's "Overheard" is a cold black humor platter. The golden partnership of Mak Chong's "Overheard" uses financial crime as a shell to reflect on the origin of information technology. Even the "Gold Finger" with a collapsed reputation has the ambition to use genres to package a flashy epic. "Hunting Gold Game" is like a puffed food with excessive sugar coating. The film "reduced the dimension" of financial games. The way Zhang Tode and his apprentice manipulated the stock market is like a primary school student using a slingshot to shoot down an invisible fighter: the three axes of releasing news, raising stock prices, and smashing the market can make the capital crocodile collapse instantly.
Movie Trailer
The depth of financial themes is never in the traders in suits and ties, but in every life that is shattered by the waves. Compared with the complexity of insider trading and algorithmic manipulation in the Overheard series, or the bold portrayal of the Hong Kong stock market bubble and collusion between officials and businessmen in the last century in Gold Finger, not to mention the web of fate of the lower-class people woven through the financial crisis in Overheard, the triggering and resolution of the crisis in Gold Hunters: The Game seem to be the creator's own words.
So much so that during the filming process, I wondered many times whether Herman Yau was addicted to skits during the filming of this movie. The fragmented plot, exaggerated performance, no need for logic and foreshadowing, quick reversals, direct information in plain language for fear that the audience would not understand, and the excitement of getting whatever they want, if each scene was cut into an episode, it seems that it can just be pieced together into a skit of a hundred episodes. The transitions were so stiff and rough that there was even a ridiculous blurry scene of Andy Lau walking on the streets of Europe...
Skit-style exaggerated lines
However, after enduring the long nonsense plot, I was almost completely disappointed with the movie, and then Andy Lau's line full of compassion, "The stock market is turbulent, and stockholders are bound to get hurt," was like a flash of lightning in the dark clouds, illuminating the remaining reason and conscience of the entire film. As an old leek who has experienced "ups and downs, ups and downs" in the stock market, I suddenly felt a little respect for this movie full of loopholes. Did the creator use the absurd ending to deconstruct the financial myth and use the "childish" narrative to satirize the absurd nature of the real capital game?
The stock market is risky, so be cautious when entering the market
As a senior "old leeks", I decided to include this movie in the "healing series" list. Whenever I am beaten by the real stock market, I will turn out "Gold Hunting Game" to rewatch it. This is probably another well-intentioned mercy of Director Qiu and Hua Zi - using 130 minutes of financial farce to give the leeks a vivid and simple market risk education lesson.
Also, compared to stocks, a mere movie ticket is really "you can't lose money if you buy it, and you can't be cheated if you buy it."
