#33 — Full Contact
This is a weekly countdown of my 49 1/2 most essential action movies, with pictures! (extra pictures can be requested for a small fee of $200 per picture, rules and restrictions apply) Last week I talked about Speed, which you can watch any day of the year and it will never feel wrong.
I’m not as familiar with Ringo Lam’s filmography as I’d like to be, but I’m aware of his frequent collaborations with Chow Yun-Fat and his penchant for gritty crime and action stories. The imprint on his work is unmistakable, both visually and thematically. I present to you some of the titles of his films: City on Fire, Prison on Fire, In Hell, Sky on Fire, Burning Paradise, and School on Fire. I think I’m on to something here.
In Full Contact, there is no established order. We are presented with characters living on the edge of a society in moral decay, an apocalyptic wild west. It reminds me a lot of William Friedkin’s work (I’m thinking about To Live and Die in L.A. and Sorcerer). Full Contact falls on that end of the spectrum — the molten lava counterpart to something like Heat (which is actually quite cool), with its shades of melancholy crystal blue. Instead of characters following a strict code and maintaining a cool exterior under pressure, they are actively melting down and redirecting their rage at the world around them.
I’m more of a John Woo man, myself. I like his spiritual sensitivity to violence and the sincere melodrama he channels into the action. I see his trademark doves as glimmers of hope and beauty, escaping the carnage — or maybe being driven out by the presence of evil. Ringo Lam says to hell with all that, and to be honest, I get it. It’s hard to look around at the world and not feel like everything is already on fire, that true justice will never be served, and the standards of decency we hold ourselves to are just leaky buckets of water. While I don’t personally draw such cynical conclusions about life, sometimes a primal scream is necessary before you can take steps toward progress. Sometimes you need a Ringo Lam to burn it all down. Maybe Full Contact is a cleansing.
Almost every character appears to be sweating gasoline and running a high fever. I’m not used to seeing Chow Yun-Fat in this state. As “Jeff” (that’s what the English subs refer to him as) he’s got a flattop, leather gloves, and butterfly knife. Anthony Wong plays his pal Sam — a guy that looks up to Jeff and wants to emulate his confidence — but he just doesn’t have the right stuff.
They get involved with a gang of crazies, led by Simon Yam as a flamboyantly gay criminal called “Judge”. He has a two sidekicks, a muscle-bound hothead called “Psycho” and his nymphomaniac girlfriend “Virgin” (Sort of like when you call a big brute “Tiny”) These are not sympathetic, multidimensional characters like Neil McCauley. They’re the laughing type of baddies, like Clarence Boddicker. They’re presented as completely irredeemable. It’s that gasoline again, soaking everything and watching it burn like Joker’s money pile. Nobody is innocent, save for a few poor souls caught in a crossfire (and the luckiest dog that ever lived).
The first half of Full Contact has your usual crime thriller setups, but with everything ratcheted up to 11. Partnerships destined to blow up in everyone’s face, a last job where someone injures your hand and you have to train with the other (folks have so much trouble with those last jobs, I’ve noticed), and a betrayal that will shape the second half of the film into a reckoning, spiritually connected to westerns like “High Plains Drifter” or “Django”. A training montage is backed by Alan Tam’s “The World Has Gone Insane” and Chow Yun-Fat lifts weights to the following lyrics:
“I will make the world take notice and overcome all obstacles
With full speed, I soar to the sky
Solitude becomes my only friend
But I cannot forget the past
Even if I don’t ask why
There is only deceit! Treachery everywhere!
This world has gone insane! Insane!”
Only Vince Dicola’s perfectly titled “Training Montage” from Rocky IV reaches the same majestic heights of heroic power ballad vengeance. Jeff is about to right some wrongs. He hits the heavy bag, pumps the barbell, goes for a ride with his rescue dog, and visits the sole survivor of his heist-gone-wrong — now suffering from third degree burns.
The final confrontation with Judge transforms a parking lot into hell, with dramatic rain illuminated by blue street lights and the orange glow of burning cars. I’m not sure if he survives this encounter or not. He rides off into the mist to deliver a suitcase of money to the burned girl, but only after being shot in the chest. How could he have survived such a wound? Is a higher power keeping him alive to perform one final redemptive act, or is this just an unfulfilled fantasy of his conscience, something he wished were true while he bleeds out on the pavement? All I know is it doesn’t matter. Jeff’s departure is one of the coolest looking closers in action cinema, a mythic representation of dark action fantasy. Death, resurrection, revenge, and consequence. Everything burns.
