Roy Cheung | Through the Shattered Lens

*(Bottom to Top) Francis Ng, Roy Cheung, Lam Suet, and Anthony Wong!*

THE MISSION is the 1999 film that helped me fall back in love with Hong Kong cinema after many of its great actors and directors had left for Hollywood in the mid 90’s. With Chow Yun-Fat, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and John Woo no longer working in Hong Kong, there was a huge void, and Director Johnnie To stepped in and helped fill it with some of the best Hong Kong crime films ever made. Through his Milkyway Image production company, To directed THE LONGEST NITE (1998), EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED (1998), A HERO NEVER DIES (1998), RUNNING OUT OF TIME (1999), ELECTION (2005), and MAD DETECTIVE (2007), to name a few, all of which are crime film masterpieces in my opinion, and feature some of the best actors still working in Hong Kong at that time. I put Johnnie To’s body of work up against the best directors working anywhere in the world in the last 40 years. The quality and volume of his movies are outstanding, and they’re prime to be discovered for the uninitiated!

THE MISSION has a relatively simple plot…five bodyguards are assembled to protect Hong Kong triad boss, Lung (Eddy Ko), after assassins try to take him out while he’s having dinner at the Super Bowl restaurant. Lung’s brother, Frank (Simon Yam), puts together quite the badass group: Curtis (Anthony Wong), a completely trusted former associate who’s now working as a hairdresser; James (Lam Suet), a firearms expert and nonstop eater of pistachios; Roy (Francis Ng), a super busy guy who seems to be rising in the ranks as a local criminal leader; Shin (Jackie Lui), Roy’s underling and the inexperienced, weak link of the team; and Mike (Roy Cheung), a guy who’s awesome with a gun and currently stuck in the pimp game. We follow this group as they protect their boss from repeated attempts on his life, and also try to help figure out who’s ordered the hits. Needless to say, their mission takes a few detours along the way, and the men will ultimately have to decide where their true loyalty lies!

THE MISSION is a crime film masterpiece, and I give Johnnie To most of the credit. Clocking in at just 84 minutes, the film is so simple, and yet it creates such a distinctive vibe that you can’t take your eyes off of the screen. To seems most interested in building the relationships between his main characters during the boring downtimes of their mission. We see them go from not talking to each other, to begrudgingly acknowledging each other, to finally playing soccer with a paper ball as they wait for their boss to leave his office. Just as we’re really getting to know and like our characters, the film will spring an intense action sequence out of nowhere. The director’s signature restraint is on full display in these limited action scenes, which are built around our characters’ professional expertise and a rising spacial tension with the would-be assassins. The action is incredible without relying on the over the top action sequences expected of the genre. As a matter of fact, I rank the “mall shootout” from THE MISSION as one of the best action scenes that Hong Kong cinema has to offer.

*The cool poster for THE MISSION (1999)*

The writing is also top notch in THE MISSION, which is not a real surprise because Nai-Hoi Yau has written almost all of Johnnie To’s best films. Yau and To have quite the working relationship as the screenplay, like the movie, hints at way more than it says. The audience isn’t spoon fed everything that happens, but it’s easy to look back upon repeat viewings and see that the clues are there based on what we know of the characters. There are also some interesting surprises sprinkled throughout the film. For example, a character shown as a coward in the opening scene re-emerges later in the film and redeems himself in a completely unexpected way. These moments are fun and exciting even for a film that is often relatively still and quiet. One other technical credit I want to mention is the film’s musical score by Chi Wing Chung. I’m not the kind of reviewer to spend too much time on a score, but I haven’t been able to get THE MISSION’s theme out of my head from the first time I saw it. Like the rest of the film, it’s simple, but it is the perfect synthy, background music for men walking and looking cool. I absolutely love it.

Last, but not least, I have to highlight the cast that Johnnie To assembled for THE MISSION. It’s full of Hong Kong film award winners, beginning with five time winner Anthony Wong, and then Francis Ng and Simon Yam, also single winners of the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor. Each of these guys are outstanding here, with Anthony Wong and Francis Ng as the standouts of the movie. Anthony Wong, known for so many over the top characterizations in the classic Hong Kong films of the 90’s, delivers a perfectly understated and subtle performance here, which makes him that much more powerful when he needs to be. Francis Ng has a lot more dialogue, but his underlying sense of frustration and boiling-over intensity is the perfect counterpoint to Wong’s patience and calm. Roy Cheung, Lam Suet, Eddy Ko, and Tian-Lin Wang (Wong Jing’s dad) are all perfectly cast and bring excellent characterizations to the table. My only complaint about the cast is the fact that Lau Ching-Wan isn’t in the film. He’s been the star of so many of To’s best films, that I wish there would have been a part for him here.

Overall, THE MISSION is an incredible crime drama with a simple plot that primarily focuses on loyalty and betrayal within the triad underworld, punctuated by intense and precise action sequences, and performed by many of the very best actors in the Hong Kong film industry. It gets my highest recommendation and is well worth searching out.

I’ve included a trailer for THE MISSION below. I honestly don’t think it’s a great representation for the movie itself, but it appears to be the best we’ve got!

Chow Yun-Fat turns 70 years old on May 18, 2025. I’m going to celebrate his career by revisiting some of his best movies this month.

PRISON ON FIRE begins with a young man named Lo Ka Yiu (Tony Leung Ka-fai) accidentally killing a thug who physically assaults his dad. He soon finds himself convicted of manslaughter and is sentenced to three years in a Hong Kong prison. Lo is not cut out for life in prison, and it doesn’t take long for him to get on the wrong side of the gang leaders. They immediately sniff out his weakness and go about terrorizing him and blaming him for everything that comes up. This extends to the head prison guard Scarface (Roy Cheung), a completely ruthless bastard who does his part to make life miserable for the newbie. Luckily for Lo, he meets Ching (Chow Yun-Fat), a seemingly happy go lucky fellow prisoner who takes pity on the young man and decides to show him the ropes. Ching is one of those guys who keeps things loose and seems to be able to get along with everybody. The two men form a good friendship, but that doesn’t stop gang leader Micky and Scarface from continuing to pick on Lo. When Ching and Lo have had enough and stand up for themselves, all hell breaks loose!

PRISON ON FIRE is an excellent example of a high quality Hong Kong film of the time. The characterizations and tone are uneven and over the top at times, but director Ringo Lam knows how to rein everything in just enough to convey the power in the story without making us laugh at it all. Tony Leung Ka-fai (known as big Tony in 80’s & 90’s Hong Kong film circles to distinguish him from the great Tony Leung Chiu-wai), portrays his character as weak and afraid until he’s been pushed so far by the gang leaders that he basically loses control and begins attacking everyone with a huge shard of glass. I don’t love the performance, but he does effectively show what happens to a nice, but weak guy in this situation. Chow Yun-Fat is not the superhuman, cool badass of films like THE KILLER and HARD-BOILED in this film. Rather, Chow plays his character as funny, easy-going, and not especially tough, until the prison guard Scarface pushes him so far that he loses control and deforms the man for life in a scene that’s extremely exciting and ends with a gruesome exclamation point. It’s an endlessly likable performance. Scarface is played by the fine Hong Kong actor Roy Cheung. His portrayal of the character makes Clancy Brown’s Captain Hadley in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION almost seem like a nice guy in comparison. You can’t help but be emotionally invested when a possessed Chow takes him on at the end. The other standout performances are from Ka-Hui Ho and Tommy Kwong as the gang leaders in the jail. Ho’s Micky is an absolutely garbage human being, while Kwong’s Bill is tough, but ultimately good to our heroes.

For historical reference, PRISON ON FIRE was released in 1987, at the height of Chow Yun-Fat’s popularity and at a time when he was working non-stop. It was one of eleven movies he made in 1987, with CITY ON FIRE, AN AUTUMN’S TALE, and A BETTER TOMORROW II being other standouts. Just think about that, 11 different movies in one year alone. It’s quite the tribute to his talent that he was able to create unique and memorable characters that have stood the test of time. As a matter of fact he would win a Hong Kong Film Award in 1987 for his performance in the prior year’s A BETTER TOMORROW, and he would win one again the next year for Ringo Lam’s CITY ON FIRE. He is truly one of the great international stars of the last 40 years. He doesn’t work very often these days, but he’s still making movies and is generally considered one of the nicest, most humble humans on earth. He’s famous for the way he treats his fans, usually grabbing their phones and taking selfies with them with a big smile on his face! This is going to be a fun month as I rewatch many of the movies that made him famous.

Here’s an extremely long Trailer for PRISON ON FIRE without subtitles. It focuses on the action elements of the film so it’s pretty easy to follow.