Triangle (Tie saam gok) poster & wallpaper

Louis Koo, Ka Tung Lam, Suet Lam

Told in three 30-minute segments, three friends seek out the buried treasure of a mysterious stranger.

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45% liked it

1,497 ratings

R, 1 hr. 41 min.

Directed by: Ringo Lam, Johnny To, Hark Tsui

Release Date: October 1, 2007

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DVD Release Date: September 15, 2009

Stats: 200 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (200)

  • DragonEyeMorrison
    December 21, 2008
    DragonEyeMorrison
    Maybe it was me, but i didn't feel that this worked well. I won't blame the direction, which is quite fine except the first act, the script is full of characters, sub-plots and a lot of stuff that goes on and off for no real reason. The cast is great, and Suet Lam almost steals t...( read more)he whole thing. But i never cared about the characters, and neither i felt that they were in any danger until the final part. Making a movie with 3 directors of this caliber should have been something else, but the script was written by....six people? Now that sounds like too much hands for such a medium dish.

    All that said, it's good to see the HK industry willing to experiment a bit instead of trying to make another Infernal Affairs or some crap with canto-pop idols. Hope that they can nail it the next.
  • EarthlyAlien
    June 9, 2008
    EarthlyAlien
    The concept is to die for. Three of Hong Kong's best directors (Hark Tsui, prime mover of the Hong Kong new wave; Ringo Lam, whose 1987's City on Fire practically initiated Quentin Tarantino's career, serving as an inspiration, if not out-and-out rip-off source material fo...( read more)r Reservoir Dogs; and Johnnie To, one of the most consistent and most exciting genre directors around) agreed to make one feature film, but unlike the usual triptychs (like Three... Extremes (Chan-wook Park, Takashi Miike, and Fruit Chan) or Eros (Wong Kar-wai, Antonioni and Soderbergh) where the filmmakers would create short films merely connected by a thematic or some other flimsier thread, the trio would make one continuous narrative, laid down by Tsui, pumped up by Lam, and wrapped up by To.

    Photobucket

    Aptly titled Triangle, the film starts off with three friends: blonde-haired mama's boy and taxi driver Fai (Louis Koo, recently seen in To's Triad Election), antiques dealer Mok (Sun Honglei), and nearly bankrupt husband Bo (Simon Yam) to an unfaithful psychotic wife Ling (Kelly Lin). The three, while discussing a possible heist on a local jewellery store that would instantly give them much-needed big bucks, is given a tip by a mysterious man of a treasure - a priceless Tang Dynasty artefact - hidden inside the city's Legislative Council building. The three head off to retrieve the treasure as the triad members they conned and the renegade cop (Lam Ka-tung), who is having an affair with Ling, hunt them down.

    Despite all the contrivances, the inconsistencies, and the confusion, everything works. The film isn't divided into portions but it's quite obvious who directs which part. The frenetically edited first third of the film, where the characters are introduced and the basic conceit of the narrative is put into the table (quite delirious in the amount of information that is let out of the Pandora's box), is obviously Tsui's doing (the same director who gave Jet Li his first major role in Once Upon a Time in China). The madness is then grounded by Lam, putting some teeth and psychology to Tsui's hard-lucked protagonists, while setting up connections that would lead to To's grand finale, where the director merges his knack for comedy and his exquisite eye for bullet ballets in a near-operatic shoot-out in a grass and scarecrow covered field.

    There's a consonant flow to the trio directors' predicated chaos. Each director is responsible for his segment in the film, with only the previous director's final output as guidance and cue for their part. Despite the freedom, the film didn't end up as a flagrant mess, which is not very surprising. Tsui, Lam and To, along with Hong Kong's other legendary directors (like John Woo, Wilson Yip, even Wong Kar-wai), have established the running themes, the prominent styles, and the basic narrative framework that define the former British colony's mainstream cinema.

    The three directors have decades of films and common experiences to make sure that Triangle falls within the borders of convention (and thus, render it commercially viable and extremely watchable). At most, it is To who takes the most risks, and comes out contributing the most to the narrative, without sacrificing his trademark quips. He basically uses every bit of conceit initiated by Tsui, incorporates the surfacing themes by Lam, and completes the picture with a surprising turn and a loud and flaunting bang, thus, turning Triangle into one memorable romp.

    You'd think that with the differing productions (separated by months, depending on the actors' schedules) and directing styles, Triangle would end up as a merely entertaining experiment without any real depth to chew on. Actually, the film pretty much rehashes the well-entrenched theme of honour and loyalty in HK cinema. In the midst of the clinging temptations of a multimillion-dollar treasure, three men with varying motivations (the final goal is the big bucks but: Fai is trapped in the middle of various obligations from his dissonant relationships with the cops, the gangsters, and his two partners in crime; Bo is struggling with his wife's love affair with a cop dealt upon by his insolvency while reminiscing his abruptly ended marriage with his first wife; Mok is contemplating between his financial crisis and his precious moral stance) manage to overcome the hindrances and the odds that differentiate them, and retain or salvage what they value the most.

    It also doesn't hurt that the oft-told parable, which the film really is, is overflowing with the three directors' distinct styles. Triangle leaves you throbbing and satisfied, hooked by the idiosyncratic small time would-be crooks Tsui introduces and weaves together, moved by the romantic dance inside an abandoned factory provided for by Lam's instinctive designs, and finally sweeped by hilariously extended switch-ups and the over-the-top moonlit gunplay To gambled around with. A lot of fun!
  • habitualdamnation
    December 28, 2007
    habitualdamnation
    Amazin - Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam & Johnny To takes turns to direct a movie with no right of ever existin and yet pullin it off. It's full with surprises and keeps you interested throughout! Good actin and strong storytellin never made a bad film. Simon Yam still got it!
  • falcons84
    April 15, 2008
    falcons84
    I liked the idea, but the actual movie is rather unmemorable (perhaps I would have been able to write a fuller review if I had hustled and gotten this done earlier instead of waiting two months, gah).

    As well, it suffers from the classic problem that surfaces whenever three aute...( read more)urs try to merge their styles: there is a definite lack of stylistic continuity here, and the storyline is also too jumbled to redeem the muddled visuals. It starts off promisingly - I always love a good heist movie - but it throws in too much oddness with the story of the cheating girlfriend/doublecross/looks like a dead ex thing, and the treasure story really becomes a mere sideshow, which is a pity.

    Still, it's not quite a thumbs-down from me because I enjoyed Simon Yam's barely contained character, who although he is not very well-developed, stands out as somewhat of an enigma, giving the movie a bit more of a complex edge.
  • tpb0
    October 27, 2009
    tpb0
    It had such potential! It's good, good acting and a great story, but it was a bit too slow. Good though!
  • kingmob6
    October 16, 2009
    kingmob6
    Three amazing directors manage to tell a rather mundane story as three buddies try to pull of a heist amid various personal turmoils and financial woes.

    The film is somewhat interesting in the set-up, but falters in the middle segment and never fully recovers once we get into th...( read more)e final reel.

    A possible rental at best.
  • xxxcli213xxx
    December 15, 2008
    xxxcli213xxx
    no thanks not my thing
  • yudianto
    November 1, 2008
    yudianto
    the rating went down after a few weeks i watched it...
  • ZadkielM
    August 24, 2008
    ZadkielM
    it didn't keep my attention...i fell asleep twice watching it.
  • sxcjaydo
    July 16, 2008
    sxcjaydo
    this is a really good movie i like it=)

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