Triangle Movie Review

Directed by Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, and Johnnie To

I love when directors team up and try a new approach to making a film. In the case of triangle these 3 renowned Chinese directors agreed to make a film together which each director taking up a 30 minute chunk. The catch, was that the director who took the next section would not know which way the story was going to go until well into production. Once it was their turn they would get their own screenwriters to add to the story. So the first section was started by Tsui Hark then followed by Ringo Lam and then concluded by Johnnie To. Doing this it could have either been a huge disaster or a brilliant move. I think they movie is somewhere in between but more towards the latter. What really works is how well the movie flows. If I didnt know better I would have assumed that it was written from start to finish by the same writers. Each section does have characteristics of the directors style but overall they fit together smoothly.
Let me do a very simplified synopsis of the movie. The story is about 3 friends in financial trouble that meet a man in a bar that gives them clues to how they can make a fortune. They unravel the clues and find out that the old man gave them a map to where they can find a suit made of gold thats worth several million dollars. While all this is going on one of the men's wife is cheating on him with a cop thats after the money also. Also one of the men owes the mafia some money and they are after him also.

So basically its a stylistic crim caper. The story is nothing too original but its done in such a cool way that you are never bored and kept captivated the whole 90+ minute running time. I thought the first block directed by Tsui Hark was set up very well and was left open that could have gone several different ways. The second block directed by Ringo Lam transitioned perfect and he several of my favorite moments of the movie. The third block was wrapped up very neatly by Johnnie To. I liked the madcap madcap mentality of that block that reminded me a lot of like a 80's Jackie Chan movie without the martial arts. They way he wrapped up the final gun battle in a field of bushes was pretty cool.

I was really looking forward to this movie and overall I was pleased. It just feels fresh and different plus I liked looking for the stylistic differences between each director. Im not real familiar with Ringo Lam but im pretty familiar with Tsui Hark and Johnny To and could pick out little pieces here and there that spoke "them". On a scale of 1- 10 I give this a flat tire scam 7.3 out of 10.

Yeah triangles are one of my favorite shapes!