Taxi Hunter (

1993

) ½

Its easy to mock a film like Taxi Hunter, a sleazy Hong Kong knock-off of Falling Down (1993) and Taxi Driver (1976) that has its central lunatic/vigilante venting his rage at cabbies of all people. It’s a ridiculous premise; especially for those of us living in countries where for the most part our institutions and businesses function as intended. A Danish Taxi Hunter, for instance, would really be as funny as this film is taken for. But to understand Taxi Hunter, you need to understand what life is/was like in China and Hong Kong for a great many people. These are mean-streets that the Sinoized version of Travis Bickle walks, teeming with smart and cynical survivors who don’t think twice about ripping off anyone dumber or more cowardly than they are. There are cops, and for the most part, violent crime is less than in the West but the authorities are either blind to or paid off by hucksters and scam artists. This is a city not unlike the one my wife grew up in, the one where my father-in-law (as soft-spoken and mild-mannered man as I have ever met) got beaten when he called out a dodgy merchant for selling defective appliances. I have never experienced such a life myself, growing up sheltered in small-town America where the only ones actively lying to me were my teachers and politicians, but once you understand the world of the film it's easy to empathize with the plight of the central character. He’s just a regular guy that got hurt, bullied and taken advantage of one too many times and snapped. Indeed, by the end of the film, I found myself sympathizing more with him than I did with the more abstractly angry D-Fens or Travis Bickle from the American inspirations.

When we first meet Ah-Kin he’s living the dream, sure he’s a wimp but he’s doing well enough as an insurance salesman to afford a nice house and all the little luxuries. His finances are a bit strained at the moment, but only because his wife is expecting and the potential parents have splurged on baby gear. The only problem is that Ah-Kin’s car was totaled in an accident with a taxi driver that is obviously not his fault (the cab swerved in front of him and then screeched to a halt). To make matters worse the driver and his goon-squad friends intimidate Ah-Kin into forking over a big wad of money. So Ah-Kin’s car is knocked out of commission and won’t be fixed in a hurry, so for the duration, he is stuck relying on taxis for all his time-sensitive travel.

Before we get any further in the plot though, Taxi Hunter springs its obligatory action sequence on us. The caliber of Hong Kong action movies is so high that a film that isn’t an action movie and is only adding in a sequence of thrilling violence as a half-hearted marketing measure, manages to pull it off better than most of its Hollywood contemporaries. The thin pretext for the sequence is that it serves as a good introduction for the audience to Ah-Kin’s dashing and heroic friend, Kai-Chung and his bumbling new partner Si-Gao. Kai-Chung is pretty much the archetypical Hong Kong Super-Cop, and it is amusing to see him paired with basically his polar opposite. Si-Gao is cowardly, lazy, dumb and utterly lacking in any kind of style (his wardrobe is an alternating collection of American basketball paraphernalia, often a mish-mash of different teams). Si-Gao is a character archetype that has largely died out in the West but is still thriving in China, a dedicated comic relief. Now, most comic relief range from obnoxious to infuriating, but Si-Gao is genuinely likable. Maybe it’s a matter of experience, the actor playing him has been doing this sort of thing for most of his career. At the start though, Si-Gao and Kai-Chung really feel like distractions, almost as if their scenes are taken from another movie altogether. It’s only after Ah-Kin has his breakdown that they become important to the main plot.

One night, Ah-Kin’s wife goes into labor, with his car still in the shop he has to call up a cab. Unfortunately, It’s raining, and a passing pedestrian snags the cab when he outbids Ah-Kin. At this point, Ah-Kin’s wife begins to hemorrhage so he desperately flags down another off-duty cab driver and begs him to take his wife to the hospital. However, the driver doesn’t want any blood in his cab, so he kicks the couple off and speeds off. Unfortunately, Ah-Kin’s wife gets her dress caught in the door and is dragged several feet through the street before the fabric rips. A complicated delivery becomes a catastrophic one by the time Ah-Kin can get her to the hospital. Neither she nor the baby makes it.

From then on Ah-Kin is a changed man. His performance at work suffers, he starts drinking heavily, and he spends his time alone obsessively watching and re-watching old home videos of his lost wife. One day, while eating his lunch outside he sees a cabbie trying to rip off one of his fairs, and something in his brain snaps. He marches over to the driver, hits him and tells him to stop trying to swindle his customers. The onlookers cheer; finally, there’s someone willing to stand up to the wicked taxi drivers plaguing the city. Perhaps this is just the kind of encouragement that Ah-Kin doesn’t need because pretty soon he’s killing every taxi driver he meets. Ah-Kin strangles the first victim, but when he tries it on the second cabbie he only winds up getting his ass kicked by the enraged driver. Obviously, this doughy middle-aged office worker isn’t cut out for barehanded murder. Ah-Kin has three choices: learn kung-fu, abandon his crusade against cabbies, or buy a gun; Ah-Kin goes with the latter. What follows though is a straight-forward knock-off of the famous “You talking to me” scene in Taxi Driver (1976) where Ah-Kin practices drawing his weapon and talking tough while staring at his reflection in the mirror. It’s amusing (and even a little endearing) to watch his initial struggles with the weapon, at one point losing it down the leg of his pants. It’s a nice way to show just how ordinary and even pitiful Ah-Kin is despite his pathological hatred of taxis.

Now, you can’t go around killing cabbies in Hong Kong without drawing the ire of the police and its Si-Gao and Kai-Chung that get assigned to the case. Now, Kai-Chung is a great guy to have on your side in a fight, but he’s somewhat lacking as an investigator. For instance, he knows all about Ah-Kin’s obsessive hatred of taxis and doesn’t suspect for a moment that his friend may be the mysterious taxi-driver-killer. Since none of the other cops are acquainted with Ah-Kin there’s nobody to help Kai-Chung put the pieces together either. So the cops settle for a sting operation, where undercover operators pose as taxi drivers and hunt for the killer. It’s only a matter of time before they happen upon Ah-Kin.

It’s more than a little hard to believe that any profession (aside from mercenaries, politicians, and lawyers) could have the sheer concentration of scumbags as the taxi drivers do in this film. Aside from one guy, who even Ah-Kin has to praise for his professionalism (using strangely poetic language no less), all taxi drivers are at best greedy, selfish bastards, and at worst out-right criminals. Now all cabbies might be scum, but their individual level of evil is highly variable. Some drivers are just ripping off customers, or being rude to the fairs, while others are stooping to such criminal depths as rape and extortion. Frankly, I’m amazed that the cab companies are able to stay in business with so many degenerate and criminal employees. I know if I live in the Hong Kong of Taxi Hunter I would be taking the bus.

Still though, if you’re willing to buy into that central absurdity, you’ll find a surprisingly solid film. The star here is Anthony Wong’s Ah-Kin, who is convincingly wimpy at the beginning of the film and convincingly insane for the rest of its runtime. Part of it is his acting chops but a big part of his believability is raw physicality. Wong has one of those faces, especially rare in the pretty-boy dominated world of Hong Kong stars, that looks disarmingly normal and at the same time somehow twisted and malevolent. He’s like one of those serial killers, whose neighbors always thought he was a regular guy despite the suspicious noises and smells coming from his apartment. Now clearly, director Herman Yau recognized his talent, as Yau would cast Wong as a disgusting murderer/rapist/cannibal chef in The Untold Story (1993) and Ebola Syndrome (1996).

In addition to a strong leading performance, Taxi Hunter has the significant benefit of being genuinely funny to boot. I’ll admit that Si-Gao’s overt clowning had me smiling more than I thought I would but the funniest scene in the whole film fits with rather than relieves the tone. After Si-Gao has a run-in with Ah-Kin while he’s posing as a taxi driver Ah-Kin wounds him with a stray shot. Si-Gao is hurt but makes it safely to the hospital. While he’s recuperating Ah-Kin comes to visit him and apologizes profusely for mistaking Si-Gao as a cabbie. Throughout the scene, the film implies that Ah-Kin has come to finish off Si-Gao so the cop cannot identify him. Just as Ah-Kin lifts a pillow in what looks like an attempt to smother the injured cop, only to lovingly tuck the pillow behind Si-Gao’s head and ask him to promise not to tell anyone about him. Ah-Kin wouldn’t hurt a fly unless it was a taxi driver. The scene is funny, sure its dark humor, but this is a film about a man systematically killing cabbies because one accidentally killed his wife. Dark humor is probably the best fit for the movie’s tone.