As the movie starts off with a more supernatural storyline showing Feng Shui Master changing a woman’s fate by attempting to bury her underground which is then followed by a more comedic tone, there is a point where the movie shifts into a crime thriller. The Master’s visit to an apartment that serves as a brothel leads to a gruesome crime being committed in the form of a serial killer who seems to be obsessed with killing working sex after a thunderstorm. In the mix of all this chaos Siu-tung who is a delivery man appears in the movie and at the end is showcased to have a killing obsession with black cats. He is also accompanied by an inspector who in the past has been against him. Meanwhile the master tries to assist Siu-tung in suppressing his murderous instinct while also trying to domesticate himself.
There is a lot of effort directed towards the entertainment factor out of Soi Cheang’s work as Cheang incorporates elements of numerous genres through his amalgamated techniques to uphold the familiar disorder that encapsulated Hong Kong movies.
Taoism as a Martial Arts Philosophy teaches us that what goes around comes around and raises self-inflicted anguish by letting killing intent drift through the mind of Master Siu-tung. The extreme violence portrayed by The Murderer is just a small fraction of the collected works and there is a strong bias to portray criminals as sociopaths, mixing strong ethics with a good amount of madness. The end product of all of this is the complete whirlwind that lasts for most of the movie. To all of that add a little more: comedy through Master’s jokes and how he befriends the cutter Siu-tung, some (Melo) dramas about their histories, and an appetite-wrenching fear about the ending these make the last part of the genre picture.
In addition, the real Cheang uses this perfectly including great elements with profuse sarcasm to achieve strong comedy Cheang does not rule out turning to any genre. Both in his action and in his romance films he shows the difference between destiny and coincidence such ‘tricks’ pushes the story even if they are occasionally quite illogical.
These few examples would have sufficed, but Cheang does not appear to have been particularly inclined to take risks about determining both the plot and the characters.
Does the Master possess crazy, violent, and raging tendencies or is he practicing Tao in a compassionate manner? Is Siu-tung a hopeless sociopath and the Veteran a criminal husband who will not forgive or a person willing to completely abandon rational thought for a chance to change the world? It is a supernatural comedy within a crime film in the patterns of drama. Such mixture is not helpful in terms of quality of the movie in any respect, especially considering the fact that these problems in the writing are easy to notice over time.
On the contrary, the rest of the things about the movie are rather decent. Gordon Lam is excellent in his portrayal of the master but in an overly excessive manner reminiscent of Lau Ching Wan in Mad Detective film after he had his head bandaged. Best of all Lokman Yeung is always scary Siu-tung, when he moves and when Squashing cats fits into one of the best moments of the movie. Peter Chan as The Murderer successfully portrays a sociopath disguised as a sane person, while Berg Ng as the Veteran greatly performs in a character who is seemingly the weakest but with great power potential embedded in him.
The editing work by David Richardson and Allen Leung effectively brings in the much needed break neck pace, which is definitely in line with the genre, complemented with rapid character movements matching the pace.
Cheng Siu-keung portrays all the settings from the Taoist tent to the Master’s terrace then the neon lights brothel and dark alleys alongside the minor bistros in a manner which respects the given context while further strengthening the dull location prioritized in this novel.
“Mad Fate” as a film is not weak by any stretch of the imagination and in fact for those who were fans of HK cinema from times gone many aspects will be pleasurable while the movie manages to engage you from start all the way to end. However, the issue lies that Cheang raised the bar quite high with “Limbo” and no matter how commendable “Mad Fate” is it inexplicably fails to compare with it’s predecessor.
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