Director: Ronny Yu
Cast: Russell Wong, Steven Vincent Leigh, Lisa Schrage, Billy Drago

How do rumors get started? Well, as one sage put it, they're started by the jealous people who got mad seeing something they had held by someone else. Although it's often fun to hear rumors when you're personally not the subject of the rumors, what's really fun (at least to me) is hearing rumors from the motion picture industry. Since the motion picture industry is frequently so wild and bizarre, the rumors that come out of it can be a hoot. Some of these rumors have turned out to be true. For example, take the case of the 1977 Disney animated movie The Rescuers. When it was released on home video for its second time in 1999, buzz started to circulate that in the background of one scene, a photograph of a topless woman could be seen very briefly. When this was confirmed, the spoilsports at Disney withdrew millions of videocassettes, despite the fact that their earlier animated movie Fantasia not only had nudity too, but far more of it. Then there are rumors that haven't been confirmed yet. One such example is with the 1985 comedy Teen Wolf, where people have claimed that in the final scene of the movie, a background extra can be seen having his pants down and exposing himself. As it turns out, the image to date is too blurry to make a definite conclusion, but I am sure when the movie gets its much-demanded 4K release, we'll know for sure. Then there are movie rumors that have eventually been debunked. Take the 1985 Cannon movie King Solomon's Mines. For years there was a rumor that when it came to casting the movie, producer Menahem Golan told his team to, "Get that Stone woman." The team then hired actress Sharon Stone, but when the finished movie was screened for a very bewildered Golan, it was revealed that Golan meant Kathleen Turner from the movie Romancing The Stone. A hilarious story, yes... but sadly untrue. It was debunked in 2021 in the book The Cannon Film Guide Volume 2, where author Austin Trunick uncovered in his extensive research that Turner had been offered the female lead role, but she turned it down because it was too similar to her role in Romancing The Stone.

There's one particular kind of motion picture industry rumor that I really want to discuss, a rumor that I'm pretty sure you've one way or another heard of some time in your travels. That rumor has to do with organized crime figures getting their fingers one way or another into the making of motion pictures. I can see why this particular rumor has gone on for so many years; to a degree it's funny to think of break-your-fingers goons getting involved in a business that many would consider to be an art form. But is there any truth to it? I did some research about this, and after my research I saw that there have definitely been some times when organized crime figures have dabbled in the motion picture industry. One of the earliest examples of this was in 1930s, when the Hollywood studio Paramount Pictures was teetering towards bankruptcy. The studio was saved when mobster king Charles "Lucky" Luciano and his mobster partner Joseph "Joe Adonis" Fischetti gave Paramount the funds to revive itself... while at the same time giving strong suggestions to the Paramount brass about the kind of movies Paramount should make. A couple of decades later, there was the case of actor Frank Sinatra, who desperately wanted a role in the classic movie From Here To Eternity. Sinatra used his mobster connections to "persuade" Columbia Pictures to hire him, a move that inspired the horse head scene in the movie The Godfather decades later. But possibly the most notorious example of organized crime getting involved with Hollywood was with the legendary Bryanston Pictures. While they got fame with distributing movies like Deep Throat and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, they were actually run by the sons of Anthony Peraino, who was one of the key members of the Colombo crime family. It's been said that the Perainos used Bryanston to launder millions of dollars of ill-gotten gains.

All of those examples I gave are from the distant past, as you probably saw. Today, it's much harder for organized crime to get involved in the Hollywood motion picture industry, though it still does happen from time to time; when you have a free moment, read on Wikipedia about movie producer Julius R. Nasso (who produced several Steven Seagal movies) and his ties to the mob.  Anyway, Hollywood has definitely been a magnet for organized crime on a number of occasions, but what about with the film industries from other countries? Well, I haven't heard any stories from my country, Canada, probably because the film industry there is a joke and far, far from being money-making. But I have occasionally heard stories from other countries, one of which has to do with the movie I am reviewing here, China White. It is a Hong Kong movie with scandal attached to it, thanks to some dirty dealing by the local triads. One of its female stars, Carina Lau (Project A Part II), and two of her co-stars, then rising star Andy Lau (God Of Gamblers) and Alex Man (Casino Tycoon), had actually been kidnapped, transported by the triads to Amsterdam, and forced at gunpoint by the triads to act in the movie! It's a crazy rumor, but one that seems to be true from the extensive research I did on the movie. Of course, how could I resist watching a movie with such an incredible backstory, especially one that had an appearance one of my favorite Hong Kong actors, Andy Lau? And directed by the legendary Ronny Yu (The Bride With White Hair)? As you've probably guessed, this Hong Kong movie takes place in Amsterdam, mainly in the Chinese section of the city. A war between rival triad operations has been taking place, with one triad gang lead by Chung Chi (Feng Ku, Legacy Of Rage), and his two nephews, Bobby (Russel Wong, The Joy Luck Club) and Danny (Steven Vincent Leigh, Sword Of Honor). Eventually the gang warfare gets Chung killed by the men of Vietnamese gangster Phong (Ka-Kui Ho, City On Fire). The Chow brothers swear revenge on Phong, but they soon find out that not only will they be battling Phong and his men, a non-triad mobster outside of Chinatown named Scalia (Billy Drago, Hunter's Blood) wants to get hold of Chinatown's illegal doings for himself, and starts making plans to destroy the Chow brothers and their gang.

I know, I know, you are not as concerned about the plot of China White as you are with a nagging question in your mind concerning the movie. You are wondering if in the end results, there are any visible signs of triad influence in the movie, whether it be with the performances of the cast to the storyline. Well, I always aim to please with my reviews, so I'll first start by getting to answer how the cast fares. First, I will mention that any readers who are as big of an Andy Lau fan as I am will be very disappointed by his showcasing in this movie - he has very little screen time, and doesn't get to do that much. Still, he doesn't show any signs of stress from acting at gunpoint, and doesn't really embarrass himself, unlike some of the other actors in the movie. As the main villain in China White, actor Billy Drago get close to being over the top at times. I wouldn't necessarily say this is his fault, since I've noticed in many Hong Kong movies over the years that Caucasian actors in antagonist roles have been directed to overact to the extreme with their performances. There is some goofy fun to get with Drago's performance, but since the other performers more or less play it straight, it seems to come from another movie. Among these otherwise straight performances, the best is probably that from actor Feng Ku. Though his character is the head of an illegal organization that is pushing poison to the public, Ku manages to come across as oddly likable and sympathetic despite exiting the movie early on. Of the players who have more screen time, the one who makes the most impression is Lisa Schrage (Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II) as a police officer named Anne who goes under cover in order to gather evidence that will convict the various drug gangs, but ends up falling in love with Bobby. While she's not a great actress, she at least has with her character the opportunity to explore various big emotions from romance to fury, which is a lot more opportunity than most of the other cast members get to have.

With that last remark, you might have guessed one of the big issues I had with China White, an issue that not even the most accomplished actors could have salvaged. I'll illustrate this with a look at the movie's two main characters, Bobby and Danny. In the roles, actors Russell Wong and Steven Vincent Leigh only manage to be simply adequate because their roles don't give them much of an opportunity to be anything else. For the most part, Bobby and Danny get along very well and don't seem to have different opinions on anything. This just makes them come across as carbon copies, so no sparks of any kind fly between them. Oh, late in the movie, Danny voices objections about Bobby planning to marry Anne since she is Caucasian, but not only does this suddenly come out of nowhere, it subsequently never gets resolved to any kind of satisfaction for the audience. It's not just Bobby and Danny being weakly written as well; it's not clear at first if Anne and her black partner (named "Rasta" - no comment) are cops or reporters, and a couple of eventual key members of the Chow gang keep appearing and disappearing quickly throughout so we can't get a firm grip of their personalities or roles. Having brought that up, I feel that I should point out that the story of China White is an equal mess. I watched the uncut Hong Kong version of the movie, but I was still confused about some plot details. There are scenes that don't seem to serve any real purpose, whether it's a long flashback to when the Chow brothers were children, or later when Chow takes a trip to Thailand in order to trade guns for drugs. Indeed, in the second half of the movie, there are so many subplots and characters brought into the mix that most of them are just half baked at best when the movie finally gets to the end credits. Whether the confusing story can be blamed on triad influence, I cannot say for sure... but it could be possible.

I don't know if it's necessary to point out that the main plot, as well as the various subplots in China White, are really nothing new, at least for me. Having previously watched a number of Asian movies about triad gang warfare, as well as Asian movies dealing with family dynamics and attitudes towards Westerners, I really got a feeling of deja vu at times. Of course, I have seen plenty of movies (Asian or otherwise) that didn't have hot scripts but were all the same saved and made entertaining by the person in the director's chair. But whether it was because of the triads' thumb on the production or for other reasons, director Ronny Yu wasn't able to put much of his talented thumb on this particular movie. He does manage to choose atypical (somewhat seedy) Amsterdam locations that catch the viewer's eye, some scenes out in the public have a nice natural and unchoreographed feel to them, and there are a few stunt sequences (some clearly using the cast and not stunt doubles) that are impressive. Apart from those stunt sequences, though, the action in the movie isn't very impressive. The main problem is that there's just not enough action, and when the action does decide to come, instead of it being hard-hitting and exciting, it feels like various random acts of violence that were directed by several people and crudely stitched together - there's no sweeping flow of action. Even the action sequence at the climax isn't all that impressive, because Yu really botches the expected final mano a mano moment really badly, so much so that you get the sense that while filming it, he was nervously looking over his shoulder at an inspecting triad member while thinking to get the sequence and the whole movie completed as quickly as possible, damn the quality a rushed job might result in.

(Posted July 27, 2025)