The Goldfinger (2023) User Reviews

An anticlimactic film

[limubai-film · 6/10 · 30 December 2023]

I am very curious about what happened to this film.

It's like a chef preparing high-end ingredients to make a stunning dish for diners, but halfway through, he suddenly finds that the natural gas has run out, and there is no other heat source available, so he can only rely on the residual heat in the pot to cook the dish.

The first half of the film is undoubtedly a good one. Seeing Tony Leung and Andy Lau opposite each other will make people wonder whether it can reach the height of "Infernal Affairs". As a result, it completely collapsed in the second half. The narrative advancement relied entirely on voiceover dictation, and every scene that could have been polished turned into a few seconds scenes.

The Goldfinger

[jackson_ro · 6/10 · 28 January 2024]

There's a Chinese saying called tiger head, snake tail, which perfectly describes the film. The Goldfinger starts with a bang with over the top scenes that harkens back to the heydays of HK cinema. But as the story progresses, you realize how thin of a plot the movie has. The film fails to develop further on what is a very interesting rivalry between Tony Leung and Andy Lau, even worse if you consider how much of a classic The Departed was. In the end, the film is too "business-oriented" and not driven by its story enough. To make matters worse, the ending feels like something to appease movie authorities.

White Wine Reddens the Face, Golden Glow Blackens the Heart

[dorMancyx · 7/10 · 30 December 2023]

It kinda reminds me of a Chinese TV series called The Knockout (Kuang Biao), given their similar duo-protagonists, ambitious-police-versus-powerful-criminal setups. But really, The Goldfinger is extremely fluent and complete, with a convoluted plot, captivating narrative, and outstanding performances across the board. Some of investigation and stock center scenes impressed me especially, which are perceptibly well-considered and thought-out. I see no immediate flaw after my first watch-through. If we have to knit pick, I guess some of the dangling threads in the first half could be resolved with more detail, for instance Carmen's part and KK's end. Overall, I'd say this is one of the best Chinese films of the year.

All about business

[ryanmo-35178 · 7/10 · 8 January 2024]

This combination has not been together for 20 Tara after infernal affairs! So I am watching this movie with a lot of expectation. The story is about the rise of a business man where he used all method to make me rich. However the arrangement is quite strange with a lot of jumping and the presentation is a bit flat, though it may reflects the life of the real person. The act of Tony could not be doubt and there is little chance for Andy to present. The ending of the story is quite amazing as it just ends that Tony admitted the crimes he committed. I think the story could be with less presentation and could focus a bit more on others...

The Goldfinger

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 26 January 2024]

Back in the 1970s, Hong Kong was riddled with corrupt officials that the Government determined to bring to book. Much to the chagrin of one of the principal culprits - the police - they established an anti-corruption unit charged with addressing this problem, and thanks to one of their lead investigators (Andy Lau) they succeed! Many years later, when the British and Chinese start to talk about the colony's reunification, the Stock Market plummets and he is brought back to investigate the wealthy boss of a large network of companies (Tony Leung) who is living his gilded life of luxury whilst his investors seem to be losing their shirts. As he looks into things more, he discovers an intricate web of subsidiaries, bribery and shell companies that prove to resemble the ultimate in ponzi schemes. It's not just the enterprise that is suspect, but he gradually realises that the dodgy establishment he had hoped he had helped to dismantle years earlier had just, very efficiently, reinvented itself - and it permeates through to the top echelons of society. The film is based on real events and so, like them, we have peaks and troughs as the plot develops. That's where the film rather loses it's way. At it's best, it's tightly structured with a good dynamic between the policeman and his prey. For most of the rest of it, it rather meanders along with a real paucity of detail and little effort to show us just how charisma and charm duped just about everyone. A decent effort from Lau and Leung but it's a long two hours that skimps too much on the interesting aspects of an business that spanned the world at it's peak, run by a sleazy and unscrupulous man.

Underwhelmingly hollow

[DanTheMan2150AD · 3/10 · 25 February 2024]

Bond-adjacent title aside, The Goldfinger throws everything at the screen, including different film styles, stocks and interstitial musical montages, in the vain hope that kinetic energy might be mistaken for dramatic power. It's far from the reunion between Lau and Leung that fans of Hong Kong cinema have been waiting for, instead coming across as more of a hollow wet fart in this by-the-numbers, overcomplicated Wolf of Wall Street clone without any of the filmmaking confidence to pull it off successfully. It all feels like it's been run through a mainland China viewing board to become a curiously uninvolving work that takes what sounds like a potentially fascinating story and somehow manages to render it mostly inert due to a disappointingly shallow treatment. Lau and Leung are more than capable actors but with a standardised narrative that doesn't challenge them in any way, they ultimately sleepwalk their way through the film. Ultimately, The Goldfinger is a hard one to recommend, there's no fun to be had here, it's all brutally shallow and lacking in dexterity, only really worth something to those well-versed or interested in stock market manipulation. I'm sure there will be an inevitable sequel, presumably titled The Thunderball or The Goldeneye...

The money of corruption

[donmurray29 · 8/10 · 3 January 2024]

Giving this an 8/10 rating

New crime thriller from the filmmakers of 'Infernal Affairs' which had Andy Lau in, and he's in this too, along with Tony Leung.

Tony Leung, plays an poor engineer who comes to Hong Kong seeking work and gets involved in wrong doing that escalates in him running a criminal empire of billions, Andy Lau, plays the police investigator who goes after him. It's all very complex and very tense.

It looks and feels of the era it's set in the 1980's and corruption is all over the place. Even the slow parts still engage and you see just how greedy people can really be. It's a lovely production and the acting is full on brilliant, which does make up for action, which there is some, it's not done with any glamour, it's done to shock. But it's really the two main leads who pull off the show, again. Another true story that I did not know about.

A flashy rise-to-fall crime story that misuses Tony Leung and Andy Lau, makes for a disappointing reunion since Infernal Affairs

[ObsessiveCinemaDisorder · 5/10 · 30 January 2024]

There's a shot from the Goldfinger teaser that got me wildly excited: a close-up of Tony Leung biting a cigar smugly laughing with gold Mardi Gras raining down all around him.

Tony Leung's cheese-eating grin came across as an attempt at something new, different from the usual shy side smirk from his repertoire of introverted characters. Leung is creating a high-energy chaotic character, a performance we haven't seen yet.

In The Goldfinger, Tony Leung plays Henry Ching, a fictionalized version of real-life businessman and financial criminal George Tan who ran the Hong Kong conglomerate Carrian Group which collapsed from a corruption and fraud scandal in the 1980s.

Henry arrives under mysterious circumstances in Hong Kong in the 1970s, working his way up to founding the Carmen Group. The sudden collapse of a billion-dollar company due to a stock market crash draws the attention of ICAC prime investigator Lau Kai-yuen, who begins an investigation on Ching.

The Goldfinger is a disappointment. It pains to say...

Writer-director Felix Chong, one of the writers behind the Infernal Affairs trilogy, gets lost in an overbaked plot and delivers a flashy run-of-the-mill rise-to-fall crime thriller that sinfully misuses its two leads Tony Leung and Andy Lau.

Felix Chong gets caught up in window dressing the plot, using a non-linear structure of police interrogations conducted by Andy Lau's ICAC officer to fill in Henry Ching's past and set up the mystery behind Henry's secret money backer. It's a plot that Chong never gets the audience to care about.

The audience's priority is quite simple: to see Andy Lau and Tony Leung chewing scenery.

Infernal Affairs fans who are eagerly anticipating Tony Leung and Andy Lau's reunion will be let down. First off, Andy Lau is in a supporting role as the ICAC investigator. Secondly, Leung and Lau's scenes are procedural and plot-serving and lack the dramatic scene-chewing quality like the rooftop finale in Infernal Affairs.

As for Tony Leung's performance, it's an unsatisfying half-creation that lingers between the Tony Leung we're all familiar with and something brand new. The script positions Henry Ching as a mysterious cipher for so long that Leung never gets the screen time to properly develop his part.

Decked out in flashy expensive suits and tinted sunglasses, there are glimpses of the chaotic flamboyant Tony Leung that the trailer promised, but it's too few and far between, only appearing in montage moments-just enough to cut into a trailer!

What remains is Tony Leung's usual persona. As a result, the performance becomes an unfortunate case of the costume wearing the actor, like a cosplay.

Andy Lau is stuck in a bland stock hero role who's delivering exposition and driving the story, or rather investigation, forward. Lau is given a family subplot involving a disgruntled wife who's mad at him for neglecting his family for his job, but it goes nowhere.

It all fizzles out awkwardly at the end. As the end title cards are showing the fate of the characters, you realize the whole film is a string of historical facts.

I walked out of the theater bored and exhausted, contemplating how I got so excited over a trailer. Trailers lie. Lesson relearned.

Rise & fall of a crooked Hong Kong developer - A great affair

[joebloggscity · 8/10 · 6 January 2024]

I watched Infernal Affairs when it first hit these shores, and really was engrossed in what was an incredible tour de force of a movie. This film reunites the two leads from that classic film in an attempt to reignite that spark, and personally I found it generally worked.

We have a reversal of roles, with Tony Leung playing the villain as againt Andy Lau playing the dedicated policeman. The storyline centres around the rise & fall of the a crooked developer during the growth & rise of Hong Kong through much of the 1970s onwards, all with the background of the story of Hong Kong behind it.

This film really does get so much correct, and matches Infernal Affairs in terms of acting, direction and pacing. I was engrossed in this film, and thoroughly enjoyed the storyline as we saw the ebbs & flows of the Tony Leung's crooked developer rise to the top, and all his amorality in everything he does. He plays everyone, not always winning, but comes out on top at the end. Andy Lau plays the cop dedicated over the decades and failing to bring down the crooks, with the case taking its total personally as much as professionally.

Despite the positive aspects, the problem is though that I think for what should be a more serious film, there were moments of ridiculous nonsense which were unnecessary and took away from the film, in its humour and at time comic representations of various people (especially of the foreigners in Hong Kong). Tony Leung is excellent, but at times it was hard to see how his character really was a genius or was he just lucky. It just seemed to not add up. That kind of took away from the film.

Regardless of that, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and look forward to watching it again. I was surprised by the negative reponse by some to this film which is a shame. Maybe this film is a throwback to an old era of Asian gangster movies, which I admit is one I truly love. In this day, this film seems like a relic, but I don't care, I still find there's a place for films like this.

Personally, it's the best new film I've watched for a long time, and much better than any new film I watched over the past year in particular. I just hope that this film will help to introduce a new audience to Asian gangster movies, which rely on character and storyline as against CGI & comic book heroes.

I really recommend this film, it's been wonderful to watch these two great actors again a film that matches their status.

Perfect narratation interspersed with flashback

[ziqinguse · 8/10 · 5 January 2024]

It is a crime that the Independent Commission Against Corruption, aka IACA, with a formidable investor, narrated by plenty of storylines.

Firstly, I thought Mr Cheng hided all his money to the Secretary but she winded up with the stock controller.

Then I successfully predicted the wound on Mr Cheng's face is fake but not with the backer is also his prawn.

Thirdly, I quite like the imaginary and scurrilous scenes told by different supporters, which seems cover up his story, but apparently it is not. Plus, the assination carried by officials to the senior investor's family.

The only drawback probably is the ending kind of a bit of Rush.