Island of Greed


Island of Greed is a 1997 Hong Kong action crime thriller film directed by Michael Mak and starring Andy Lau and Tony Leung Ka-fai. The film is set and filmed in Taiwan and deals with corruption in the Government of the Republic of China.

Plot

While investigating in Taiwan's gambling arcade scene, Captain Fong Kwok-fai of the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau's Tactical Squad discovers the mastermind to be Chow Chiu-sin leader of the Chung-lam Triad, who had decided to run as a member of the Legislative Yuan and bribes his way into office. Fong infiltrate one his arcades and prosecutes him for operating an underground casino, but Chow has bribed the presiding judge and is squirted. Fong then convinces Chairman Lam Ching-piu of Tak-cheong Construction Company, who has reported Chow for blackmailing him, to record evidence of Chow in bid rigging for the construction of Coastal Highway. Chow catches Lam and drags him on a fishing hook through a plantation and Fong and his squad give chase while evading Chow's attack dogs and manage to rescue Lam. Fong exposes Chow to the public, so the Kuomintang decides to nominate his rival, Ting Chung-shu, to run for the Legislative Yuan instead. Angered, Chow matches into Ting's press conference to announce that he is running for the Legislative Yuan with a political party. At this time, Fong is also suspended from his duties as his superior officer, Suen Ching-lim, is also corrupt.
As Chow and Ting rally, taxi drivers of rival companies, Country and White Cloud, who respectively supporter Chow and Ting, fight each other for customers. With support of Country Taxi director Kwan, Chow turns the disputes into a riot. Chow instructs his wife, Miu-heung to attend a ball where National Police Agency Commissioner Tung's wife is present so that Tung would plead Chow to stop the riot and Chow is touted as a hero to the public. However, Fong's father, who is a taxi drivers, gets caught in the riot but Fong manages to save his father, narrowly escaping an explosion.
With the help of his journalist girlfriend, Ling Fei, Fong convinces the Justice Minister Fung King-chung to reinstate his position and Fung fully supports him in combating corruption. However, Ting sends killers after Fong, who manage to take them down but one of his subordinates, Nicotine, is killed. Ting attempts to frame Chow for the murder of Nicotine, but Miu-heung manages to help her husband win public support. Afterwards, Chow hires a prostitute to seduce and murder Ting, while Chow is elected into the Legislative Yuan with 125,000 votes.
Fong later captured Sung Miu-tin, fraudant cult leader and drug trafficker in cohoots with Chow, and uses him to enter Chow's mansion while Fong and his squad are in disguise. As Chow meets other twelve members of the Legislative Yuan who are also triad leaders and suggests to start their own political party, Fong and squad takes down Chow's guards and take evidence of his crimes from his computer. Chow then kills Deputy Minister Hau of the Kuomintang, who has been taking advantage of him, before fleeing Taiwan with a thirteen-vehicle entourage. Fong intercepts him in a helicopter and fires two missiles, blowing up several entorage vehicles before Chow fires a rocket launcher at his helicopter, so Fong leaps off his helicopter and engages in a scuffle with Chow that is interrupted by an explosion which kills Miu-heung and Chow breaks down before being arrested. In the end, Chow was sentenced to death, while Fong resigns from the Investigation Bureau due to public pressure, but announces to run for Mayor of Taipei and marries Fei.

Cast

Controversy

During the filming of a stunt sequence, Andy Lau damaged a helicopter that was rented from Taiwanese airline company, Daily Air Corporation. In 1998, Daily Air filed a lawsuit against Lau and production company, Win's Entertainment, where the case dragged on for 16 years. In January 2014, Lau was found liable for brushing against the pitch stick of the chopper before jumping out of it. Initially, Lau ordered was to pay NT$5.1 million in compensation, but the amount was raised to NT$6.9 million after Lau lost an appeal. Following another appeal, the compensation was lowered to NT$2.6 million.

Box office

The film grossed HK$18,146,790 at the Hong Kong box office during its theatrical run in Hong Kong.

Accolades