Where the Wind Blows, written and directed by Philip Yung. Starring Aaron Kwok and Tony Leung. Hong Kong/Chinese mainland, 144 minutes. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

If nothing else, Philip Yung’s Where the Wind Blows is a lot of movie. Spanning several decades between the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong (1941-45) and the 1980s, with a long layover in the corrupt 1960s and ’70s, the film is as sprawling and unfocused as Yung’s last feature, the award winner Port of Call, was tight and single-minded. 

The core events of the story, based on real-life figures, are well documented. The film doesn’t tell us anything new about its key players or what compelled them to resort to such shoddy behavior.

Wind begins with file footage sketching out the scandal of Peter Godber — the notorious chief superintendent of police under whom corruption became an art form and who fled the city before any charges could be laid. It sets the tone for what’s to come, at least until wives, unrequited love and drug addiction get in the way. 

From left: Michael Chow, Tony Leung, Aaron Kwok and Patrick Tam make up the nefarious quartet in Philip Yung’s filmWhere the Wind Blows, one of the two opening films of the 46th Hong Kong International Film Festival. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

The focus then switches to two of Hong Kong’s most notorious cops. Aaron Kwok stars as Lui Lok, a jaded idealist who finally gives in to the rot around him and takes a leading role. He’s joined by the affluent son of a lawyer, Nam Kong (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), who provides the strategy to Lui’s flash. Also on the crew are Fat Bee (Michael Chow) and drug trafficker Yim Hung (Patrick Tam), who together come up with a plan to forge an alliance with the city’s powerful triads to get rich and, as a side bonus, keep the peace. Over the course of their partnership, Lui and Nam go from friends to rivals.

 Both the protagonists as well as the pulpy cops-and-robbers action are staples of Hong Kong film. Lui has been portrayed by Andy Lau in Lee Rock (1991) and Tony Leung Ka-fai in I Corrupt All Cops (2009).

 Yung’s ambitions to reimagine them are grand. The period detailing is impeccable and the script doesn’t shy away from making it clear that there are no good guys in this particular crime drama — with a hint of 1950s musical tossed in. When times are good and Lui’s police-force star is on the rise, the cop and his eventual wife, Tsai Zhen (model Du Juan), break into a Christmastime soft shoe.  Conversely, the more felonious the men get, the more bathed in shadow the film becomes.

It’s a shame that Yung can’t keep the camera still long enough to let the audience revel in the film’s visuals, having packed such an enormous amount of material into the script that it ultimately loses the plot, literally. At nearly two-and-a-half hours, Wind finds time for a detour into Lui’s infidelity and lingering guilt over a woman he knew during the war, and Nam’s own lingering guilt over befriending a Japanese war commander and marrying a woman he doesn’t love. None of these elements tell us anything about the duo’s motivations or rationalizations. Characters drop in and out, and viewers are forced to make narrative leaps to get from one moment to the next. It’s when Yung gets away from the domestic drama and focuses on rotten cops that the film sparks into life. Yung’s aim is clear, but broken hearts won’t tell this story.