Taxi Hunter
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/830025
Herman Yau, 1993, HK, 35mm, VO ZH ST ANG, 89’
Déjà pas fan des chauffeurs de taxi, Ah Kin (Anthony Wong) pète les plombs lorsque sa femme enceinte, dont la robe est restée coincée dans une porte de taxi, meurt traînée sur le bitume. Scène d’anthologie pour ce classique de la Category III à l’humour noir contenant plusieurs clins d’œil à « Taxi Driver ».
Taxi Hunter (1993) - Herman Yau | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related | AllMovie
▻https://www.allmovie.com/movie/taxi-hunter-v161810
Anthony Wong stars in this dark comedy — directed by James Ha Chim-see — about Hong Kong’s notoriously surly taxi cab drivers. The film centers on Kin (Wong), a meek white-collar worker with a pregnant wife. When she goes into labor, Kin tries desperately to flag down a taxi. The first cabby refuses because his wife’s bleeding might soil his cab. When they finally arrive at the hospital, his wife’s dress gets snagged in the car door, she get dragged to death by the driver. This sends Kin off the deep end. After drowning his sorrows in liquor, he stabs to death a truculent cabby. A similar foray into vigilantism the following day only leads to a split lip and a stolen wallet. Kin regroups and gets a gun. Soon after an inevitable Travis Bickle-like transformation, he starts picking off taxi drivers left and right. The cops start to plant undercover agents as cabbies, hoping to capture the outlaw.
List of Hong Kong Category III films
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hong_Kong_Category_III_films
Hong Kong Cinemagic - Taxi Hunter
▻http://www.hkcinemagic.com/en/movie.asp?id=467
Plot
Ah Kin (Tommy Wong) is a hard-working insurance agent, his adorable wife is pregnant, and he’s been having a lot of problems with taxis lately. Ah Chung is his best friend, a hellfire, straight-arrow police officer who mostly wears a tee-shirt. When his wife starts hemorrhaging, Ah Kin calls a taxi, but it leaves when someone else offers more money. His wife dies, and now it’s time for revenge. ......
Other titles : Di shi pan guan, 的士判官 (HK Title)
Country : Hong Kong
Film Company : Galaxy Films Ltd
Genre : Category 3 / Crime / Thriller
HK Category : I I I
Runtime : 90 min.
Video : Colour
Audio : Speaking (Cantonese)
HK Gross : 5 M. HK$
Director : Herman Yau Lai To
Producer : Stephen Shin Gei Yin
Action Director : James Ha Chim Si
Writer : Lau Yin, Tony Leung Hung Wah, Mak Kai Chung, Herman Yau Lai To
Cinematographer : Puccini Yu Kwok Bing
Assistant Director : Ma Kim Y ing, Mak Kai Chung
Executive producer : Tony Leung Hung Wah
Assistant Action Director : Che Kim Fai
Music : Jonathon Wong Bong
Costume Designer : Lam Pooi Yee, Tong Ping
Art director : Danny Yuen Ching Yeung
Editor : Wong Wing Ming
Planning : Chan Yuk Ming
Presenter : Stephen Bo Yue Chung
Production Manager : Rita Fung Fung Jan, Anthony Lo Ga Chi
Car Stunt : Billy Pang Bei Lei
Cast :
Cast :
Anthony Wong Chau Sang
Perrie Lai Hoi San
Yu Rong Guang
Ng Man Tat
Athena Chu Yan
Chan Fai Hung
Fan Oi Git
Mak Kai Chung
Lam King Kong
Lam Chiu Wing
Chan Kai Tong
Hau Woon Ling
Benny Lau Shui Hung
Sammy Lau Wing Kin
Lung Tin Sang
Billy Pang Bei Lei
Alex Tang Man Chiu
Wu Fung
Brief appearance :
James Ha Chim Si
Taxi Hunter (1993) | MONDO EXPLOITO
▻http://mondoexploito.com/?p=4599
Herman Yau, who directed such classic nasties as The Untold Story (1993) and Ebola Syndrome (1996) teams up with the star of both aforementioned movies, Anthony Wong, in the nasty, yet not quite as nasty, little film Taxi Hunter. In Taxi Hunter, Wong stars as Kin, a man whose life is ravaged by taxi drivers who repeatedly bully him. His distaste for taxi drivers comes to a boil when one night his pregnant wife is killed by a reckless taxi driver. From this moment on, Kin becomes a vigilante patrolling the streets for unscrupulous taxi drivers, whether they be rapists, bullies or just trying to run up their meters by driving rubbish routes.
While Kin is going about his taxi driver killing spree, unbeknownst to him his best pal, who happens to be a policeman, is on the case to track him down. Obviously neither knows what the other is up to and of course this leads to a dramatic finale with lots of fun and action along the way and a healthy dose of Hong Kong cinema morality.
Most of us have experienced crappy taxi drivers and have been driven to irritation by their over-charging, lewd behaviour or mind numbing rantings and ravings. That is not to say that all taxi drivers are rubbish. I’m sure the vast majority of taxi drivers, like most people in most occupations, are quite good at their jobs or at the very least efficient. And I’m sure that they just get a bad reputation from the odd bad egg in the bunch. Like in most groups of people I guess. It’s the old, do a good job and nobody will say anything, do a crap job and they’ll tell a thousand people thing. Or however that saying goes. With that in mind, the reason this movie is a lot of fun is that we can all think of a crap time we had with a taxi driver and get a bit of catharsis as we watch Wong dish out his brand of madcap justice. This isn’t like the loftier villains in your usual action films where they’re millionaire drug/gun runners with world domination plans. These are just taxi drivers. This is something your average Joe (who has spent 60 dollars to get across three suburbs, only to get to the other end of the journey to catch the driver ogling your girlfriend’s cleavage in the rear-view instead of watching for the cyclist he almost hit) can get behind. So thanks, Hong Kong.
It got me thinking, what are some other ideas for action movies based on service industry irritants we could make?? Hmmm…
Inefficient Bureaucrat Hunter?
Trendy Cafe Waiter Hunter?
Late Train Driver Hunter?
Rip-off Mechanic Hunter?
Night Club Bouncer Hunter?
Stuck-up Video Store Clerk Hunter?
The Girl at the Clothing Shop Who Laughed at Me When I Hit My Head on Their Low Hanging Light Fitting Hunter?
Taxi Hunter (1993)
▻http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/taxi_hunter.htm
The Skinny: Entertaining and interesting exploitation fodder based on an actual taxi strike on Hong Kong. Anthony Wong is great as the “taxi hunter.”
Review
by Kozo: Hong Kong exploitation at its best. Anthony Wong is in nice guy/creepy guy mode as a successful insurance agent who has a pregnant wife. However, he always seems to have run-ins with lousy taxi drivers - a bit of bad luck that goes nuclear when his wife and unborn child accidentally get offed by a particularly selfish driver.
After some necessary depression, Wong decides to take his aggressions out on all those bastard taxi drivers that overcharge, choose fares, and are generally disagreeable. Yu Rong-Guang plays Wong’s best friend, a cop who’s assigned to find the taxi serial killer. Imagine his surprise when he discovers that his quarry is also his best pal. Ng Man-Tat is Yu’s partner, and Athena Chu is the reporter daughter.
This is a well-acted movie that manages to inject some complexity into its exploitative subject. Wong is a deranged killer who actually remains a decent fellow in every other way. Herman Yau never takes the easy way out, and allows events to unfold in seemingly logical ways - until he refuses to show us a conclusive ending. Still, this is an interesting character-study/revenge flick. This film was inspired by an actual taxi strike in Hong Kong. (Kozo 1996)
Alternate Review
Review
by
Magicvoice: Ah-Kin (Anthony Wong) has a nice life. He has a beautiful wife who is pregnant with their first child, a lovely apartment, and a job with prospects for promotion. Things are looking good until a Hong Kong cab driver destroys it all. When his wife goes into labor, Ah-Kin calls a cab only to have the driver take off for a better fare. Another driver stops but refuses to take them to the hospital because she is bleeding profusely. The cab driver takes off without noticing that the wife’s nightgown is stuck in the cab door, and she’s dragged down the street.
Both she and the baby die soon after and Ah-Kin is left alone with with his policeman friend Chung (Yu Rong -Guang) to comfort him. Ah-kin takes to the bottle and is soon given a leave of absence from his job due to the decline in his performance. After getting drunk with Chung one night, Ah-Kin gets harassed by the cab driver driving him home and he snaps. The driver is left dead and Ah-Kin feels strangely liberated.
From here, Taxi Hunter could have easily taken the one-dimensional Falling Down route, but instead manages to become a multi-layered revenge film with the viewer feeling nothing but sympathy for Ah-Kin. He’s really a nice guy, though a little bit nerdy and definitely insane with grief over his loss. His actions are premeditated but his motives are pure. He only kills the “bad” taxi drivers, like the ones who cheat on fares, mistreat their clients, and attempt rape. On the other hand, Ah-Kin is kind to everyone who isn’t an evil taxi driver. He even makes a special trip to the hospital to apologize to an injured cop, who was shot by Ah-Kin while working undercover as a taxi driver.
Taxi Hunter is full of Herman Yau’s humorous little touches. It’s not nearly as nasty a film as one might expect, though the death of Ah Kin’s wife is almost as gruesome as anything in The Untold Story or Ebola Syndrome (two other Yau/Wong collaborations). The social commentary on the pressures of city life and the corruption of HK taxi drivers is very interesting albeit one-sided. None of the “bad” taxi drivers are portrayed with any sympathy at all. The film is ultimately Ah-Kin’s story and we’re meant to feel for him. (Magicvoice 2002)