Project Gutenberg (2018)

Two of Hong Kong cinema's top stars, Chow Yun Fat and Aaron Kwok headline this crime thriller about a counterfeiting gang. One of the things that strikes the viewer right from its opening scene, is how stylish this movie is. The cinematography here is top notched. Aaron Kwok gives a decent performance although his character is made to demonstrate quite a personality arc, ranging from timid and mild mannered to harsh and ruthless. Hack he could easily take on Hong Kong's version of James McAvoy's multiple split personality character in Split! Veteran international star Chow Yun Fat however, fared poorer in this outing. He is made to smirk a lot and made to jump across the screen in slow motion while mercilessly firing his gun in some of the action sequences. He looked cool when he did that in his John Woo movies days, but somehow watching a 63 year old man doing that seems so un-cool to me!

The story is typical of Hong Kong police crime thrillers which they churn out endlessly. It is  overdramatic, violent, has incredible and unbelievable action sequences, full of plot twists and overly long in its running time. Apart from its technical excellence, I found the movie disappointing. My main issue was the story dragged on too long, and towards the second half, I have to admit, I got confused and barely knew what was happening! Hong Kong cinema, at least the big budget ones, still seem to be emulating Hollywood action movies but in an exaggerated fashion. Even the movie's title Project Gutenberg sounds like something out of Hollywood rather than Hong Kong. Apparently, Gutenberg is used in reference to printing press machines used for printing money, although this is never explained in the movie. The movie's chines title Mo Seung, means "Unparalleled" or "Unique" which probably makes more sense, but doesn't sound as intriguing.

Amazingly, Project Gutenberg has the honour of being nominated for a whopping 17 awards in the coming Hong Kong Festival that's happening on 14 April 2019. Believe it or not, the only awards it did not get nominated for the night were for the categories of Best New Performer and Best New Directors which it did not qualified! To me, this is not so much a reflection of the film's merits, but more a reflection of the continued decline and dire state of Hong Kong cinema today. Nevertheless, complaints aside, it has been ages since I saw Chow Yun Fat in anything decent, so I am not complaining for this opportunity.