King of Debt Collecting Agent
Directed by Ivan Lai (1999)
Starring - Nick Cheung, Sam Lee, Francis Ng, Ho Chun Kit, Anthony Wong.
Courtesy/Permission of "Hong Kong Movie DataBase"
I hadn't heard anything at all about this, so I approached it with an open mind. It plays on the fact of the economic recession in South East Asia and focuses on groups of debt collectors (funnily enough) in HK.
Nick Cheung plays Tiny, a pirate VCD salesman who joins Brother Chan's (Francis Ng) agency because of a trumped up debt he has been lumped with. He makes his name by collecting a large debt for a rich businessman from Triad boss Chui Chow Sam (Anthony Wong). This inspires him to start his own collection agency and he takes with him a couple of player from Chan's crew, Pa (Sam Lee) and Sway Head (Ho Chun Kit), who spends the entire film mashed out of his head on happy pills. Very quickly, using some clever and sometimes very sly methods, Tiny has built up quite a name for himself, so he decides to go "legit" and decks out some office space and a receptionist (Sam Lee's behaviour whilst interviewing one particularly attractive young lady was very amusing). Before too long, the power and wealth seems to go to his head and he takes an arrogant attitude towards his girlfriend and friends. During one particular debt collecting mission, he threatens the debtor that he will report his warehouse to the Customs for smuggling if he doesn't cough up. He gets the money, but later on when the warehouse gets raided, it turns out he hasn't realised who he's dealing with and Tiny's in a spot of trouble!!
It's an okay film, but nothing special, which is less than you may expect for a feature with such a strong cast. Nick Cheung just doesn't seem to be suited to the lead role, or maybe just this particular role. Anthony Wong's role is nothing more than an extended cameo, which isn't exactly the impression you would get from seeing the publicity artwork. Sam Lee and Francis Ng rode the film well, without and the latter provided the majority of the the laughs. The dialogue was very vulgar, which lead to some very dodgy lines: "how about we all wank in a cup mix it together and drink it?" If you say so. Quite entertaining, but not a contender for film of 1999 by a long shot - 7/10