Just say NO

Having reportedly conducted meticulous research on drug trafficking with former drug dealers and undercover law enforcement agents, actor-turned-filmmaker Derek Yee (爾冬陞) signed up a star-studded cast to bring his crime thriller Protege (門徒), an entertaining piece that moralizes about the destructive nature of drug abuse, to the big screen.

The film features Andy Lau (劉德華) as the heroin kingpin Banker who suffers from chronic diabetes and prepares to pass on his business to his protege Nick (Daniel Wu, 吳彥祖). Earning Banker's trust with efficiency and reliability, Nick is in fact an undercover agent who has spent eight years trying to get the low down on his mentor's operations. As Banker hobbles around, showing his heir the different parts of his empire from the laboratory all the way to the poppy fields of the Golden Triangle, Nick comes closer to finishing his undercover assignment but is also caught in a quandary considering the relationship he has built with the drug lord.

Nick's burgeoning relationship with Jane (Zhang Jingchu,張靜初), a single mom and heroin junkie whose addiction finally becomes her undoing, further adds to the conflict as he is torn between his roles as witness to addiction, fledgling drug lord and undercover cop. The lives of the dealer and the addict intertwine and through a twisted sense of morality, the police agent gains personal enlightenment on the destructive power of the narcotics.

An Asian version of Steven Soderbergh's Traffic with an affinity to the undercover cop theme that has been done to death in recent Hong Kong cinema, the film's merit doesn't lie in its approach to the subject matter but the well-informed expose on the drug industry that is both educative and gripping. From Thailand's poppy fields where former local poppy planters are cast as extras, through the heroin-manufacturing "kitchen" in Hong Kong to the recovering junkies fighting over methadone, the trip deep into the drug trade gives viewers a panoramic view of the veiled world and is carried out through an overstated and sometimes sentimental script with a non-negotiable anti-drug message.

There is no ambiguity in writer-director Yee's stand on drug use as he cleverly avoids dwelling on the reasons behind people's addictions and refuses to romanticize the crime syndicate through the charismatic presence of Lau.

The anti-drug film's smooth editing, stylistic visuals and the well-choreographed action packed sequences make it an entertaining movie to watch despite the proselytizing. Yet, Yee's grand mission sometimes hinders the screenplay and characters from full development, which is most evident in Louise Koo's (古天樂) character (Jane's junkie husband) that is hideously mishandled to the point of comic relief as the actor struggles vainly in the role wearing a set of painfully obvious fake teeth. It seems that the role was never meant to be developed into a substantial character but merely to pose as a caricature of a drug addict for the film's public service announcement on drug abuse.

Though Protege fails to offer a piece of creative filmmaking that brings to life cliche themes, it does a reasonably proficient job of weaving together the parallel plots on the cop-criminal duality, the lives of junkies and the lead's existential quandry without losing its narrative balance and turns in a dramatic and enjoyable piece that successfully elicits an emotional response to the message conveyed.