Dust to Dust (PG13)

Starring Da Peng, Gordon Lam Ka-Tung, Zhang Songwen, Qi Xi, Sunny Sun

Directed by Jonathan Li

This sleeper hit in China is kinda like the mainland’s version of Michael Mann's bank-robbery thriller Heat.

Okay, way milder with no insane thousand-bullet shootout. This is gun-free China, after all. But armed bandits killing security guards escorting a bank car stashed with cash here is still a damn big deal.

A dogged cop in southern China chases a fugitive baddie over two decades with perspectives seen from both sides. So in spirit, this pic, based apparently on a true crime, emits Heat’s heat in a fresh Asian way. Being a PRC film, it naturally affirms the long, righteous arm of the law.

In 1995, five armed robbers committed the biggest bank heist in Chinese history with a haul of 15 million RMB (S$2.85 million).

Al Pacino’s pursuing cop transplanted from Heat — played by Hong Kong's Gordon Lam — and Robert De Niro’s bad guy on the run — played by mainland Chinese actor-variety show host Da Peng — are both so compellingly drawn here we’re gripped by their personal stories.

Right through to their eventual tense showdown long past the dark deed when they’re older, greyer men. Da is a standout as he ages and loses weight transforming into an unrecognisable person under a false identity. While Lam’s wavy hair seems more resilient in standing the test of time.

Twenty one years later, a chance sighting of the runaway villain in a video leads to the lawman, now retired, going back on the hunt. And as in the US flick, both cop and crook are given equal, very effective weightage.

At first, you’d think the bespectacled Da is chubby comic relief as HK director Jonathan Li (The Brink) nails the greedy-capitalist Chinese economic boom culture of the 1990s.

Da plays Chen Xinwen, a construction company owner so bold and unscrupulous he even dares to cheat the Chinese government. There’s great dirty fun in watching Chen promising to build a government-funded bridge while running on empty. The cocky show-off plies business partners and workers with booze in a Chinese restaurant while plotting an illegal cash injection with his hesitant cousin-sidekick, Xinnian (No More Bets' Sun Yang), to solve their money woes.

The high-risk taker’s alter-ego is, deep down, a criminal mastermind who’s more ruthless than his gun-toting associates. The quick-tempered dude is dangerously volatile.

“He won’t let you find him,” Chen’s father cautions the police about his son’s twisted Lex Luthor mind after only the cousins escape capture.

Dust to Dust: Da Peng (right) is determined not to give up his Taylor Swift concert tickets. 

Lam portrays Captain Wang, an experienced Guangdong top cop, who’s roped in when the size of the crime goes political, drawing the attention of the state’s Provincial Security Bureau. The man has unfinished beef to settle because his partner is killed in the arrest of the robbers.  

Here, director Li deftly combines the best of both worlds — an HK-style police thriller spoken in Cantonese and shady-business drama conducted in Mandarin. There’s a terrific scene where both styles fuse as Wang meets Chen in the latter’s office, unaware that an entire gang of nasties is planning the bank robbery right under his nose. 

Now, the first part of this flick is police-driven strong as the cops investigate and close in on the baddies. The second, except for a clumsy, peculiar detour to a quarry mine where the fugitives starvation-toil as they lie low, turns personal and stalker-worthy.

The cop catches up with the crook in a cat-and-mouse game in which he hangs out in plain sight to observe, unnerve and wait for either a mistake or confession from the baddie who’s now a totally changed, humanised family man.

Pacino and De Niro certainly didn’t go this far in their interaction in Heat.

 “I came here to see what you’ve become,” the arresting Lam tells the captivating Da. No puns intended.

In Dust To Dust, both have become quite simply superb. (3.5/5 stars)

Photos: Shaw Organisation