There are many actors in the world of cinema that typically play roles where you wouldn’t want to mess with them. Anthony Wong is one of those men you never want to F around with because, if you do, you will most likely die. That is what you can expect to happen, indirectly, in director Law Wing-Cheong and producer Johnnie To’s new hostage drama, Punished.
In Punished, Wong plays a wealthy but ‘dirty-dealing real estate tycoon,’ named Wong Ho-chiu, who has no need for BS and uses outside teams in an attempt to crush dissidents of any of his upcoming real estate projects. He may be fearsome on the street but at home he can’t control the one thing he is supposed to take care of the most, his daughter. Daisy (Janice Man) is a coke snorting wild girl whom he can’t control without being a complete ass, especially since his original wife is no longer alive. It’s a tense relationship in the family so anything could happen.
One day, after a heated argument, Daisy storms out of the house and doesn’t return that night. Later in the evening he receives a video message from an unknown source demanding $50 million and showing Daisy tied up and miserable. Even though Wong isn’t sure if the kidnapping is real, he goes ahead and follows the orders of the kidnapper and brings the money to a certain location. When the kidnapper isn’t true to his word Cher (Richie Ren), Wong’s loyal assistant/guard, goes out to hunt people down in an attempt to find clues that could lead to Daisy. With circular saws to the face and Wong literally breaking down over the news of his daughter, Punished becomes more of a revenge drama then that of a hostage drama.
Going into this film I was pretty excited. I thought we were going to see Anthony Wong kill a lot people and this movie would just be a slightly more dramatic version Liam Nielson’s Taken. Boy was I wrong. The movie had a lot going for it up until you found out exactly what the girl’s fate is in the film (SPOILER You find out she dies in the first 10 minutes of the film END SPOILER). It’s an unconventional way to set up a movie like this; to find out the fate and then go both forward and back in time to determine exactly why and how Daisy was Kidnapped. Looking back now, I completely understand the tactic, it’s because Law Wing-Cheong wanted this to be a drama, not an action thriller, so instead of using blood and death to entice viewers, we are given the opportunity to evaluate the psychological state of Wong and his personality changes as he tries to adapt and cope with the crisis on his hands. I liked this approach but it just really wasn’t what I was hoping for when I sat down to watch the movie.
Another disappointing aspect is that Wong isn’t really the badass in the movie. You know not to mess with him but, in actuality, you don’t want to mess with his partner Cher. He is the one that is going out, finding the people who have any connection to the kidnapping whatsoever and making them talk. He either lets them live, or depending on who they are, die. He is a character that you’ll end up loving and pitying. His story is the main side plot of the film because, like Wong, he has a difficult relationship with his child as well even though he is very kind and attempts to nurture him. When you see that the relationship is so bad and, at the same time, he is taking bullets in the chest, it’s hard not to sympathize with Cher. Thank god for his continual presence on screen because, without him, I think this movie would have been terrible.
Overall, Punished will throw your expectations off within the first 10 minutes of the film and will continually do so until about the halfway point when you finally understand exactly how Wong wants to handle this kidnapping. I found the film to be a little disappointing in its entirety because I had expected something completely different. It wasn’t a terrible film but it wasn’t as intense and suspenseful as I had hoped for since the movie’s time was spent filling the holes between when Daisy was kidnapped and when Wong gets her back. It also focused more on the intense pressure Wong was facing and how he was slowly was crumbling on the inside. If you know that this is going to be a character driven drama that focuses its storytelling on its anti-heroes, then I think you will enjoy this much more than I did. Punished was cool, interesting, and occasionally a suspenseful film, but it’s not as powerful or exciting as one would hope it to be, thus making it fall into the purgatory of mediocrity.
Rating: A bland hostage drama that lacks the intensity you’d expect from it (5.5)
Recent Comments