How do you make a Shaw Brothers film without actually being a Shaw Brothers film?
You make this.
Highly recommended to all fans of action cinema. Seldom have I seen better fight sequences. The plot is vintage wuxia with a very modern overcoat but there was never anything wrong with the plot of those films. There are good guys. Bad guys. Conflict. You come in, sit down, get dazzled, and the ending comes with a crash. That's pretty much the entirety of Twilight, and it doesn't surprise me one bit that Johnnie To was once attached to this production. This is exactly the kind of thing he's good at.
I am still a little amazed that Sammo Hung plays Mr. Big, the main Triad villain. Sammo Hung! The wacky guy from Encounters of the Spooky Kind and the Jackie Chan films, the one with a hand in all the Mr. Vampire films. The top tier fight coordinator. Ye Gods. I did not even know that was him on screen. To still be doing this kind of thing in his 70s ... Louis Koo is a very charismatic Cyclone and German Cheung's AV kinda steals every scene he's in, though I think he's helped by that mask of his. It draws the eye. Philip Ng does well as King, the villain's villain - the fella biting that sword in half - but you've seen this character a thousand times before. He's there to betray and be hated. Not that this is a bad thing, far from it, and he's got that manic laugh down. All in all, not a bad actor in the bunch.
But the bit that caught my eye and lured me in was that the whole thing's set in Kowloon Walled City.
The Walled City is what happens when nobody lays claim to a chunk of territory. Conceptually, it was bitcoin in architectural form, with all the madness and lack of governance that description implies. As nobody was in charge, practically speaking, everybody had a hand in it, and that includes criminal syndicates. It was called the City of Darkness and, while the title's evocative, it probably had more to do with the actual lack of light than any metaphysical or moral aspect.
South China Morning Post
Oddly it reminds me not a little of Corbusier and concepts based on his theories of design, like London's Barbican. Not because of its architecture but because it exemplifies one of his basic principles: you should have everything you need for work, housing and recreation within walking distance. That definitely applies here. You could spend your entire life inside the Walled City and never have a reason to set foot outside.
The Walled City sees some play in games like Shadowrun: Hong Kong or Call of Duty but it doesn't often appear in tabletop, which is a shame. It's often a background for a fight scene.
Let's play with that concept.
Of all the settings I could use, Night's Black Agents seems the most appropriate. A Thrilling Trace, let's say:
Trace missions are similar to Hunts, but with an object instead of a person.
Key differences: Trace missions tend to reach a lot further back in time.
The target of a Hunt is unlikely to have remained hidden for more than, say, 30 or 40 years (for that “former Cold Warrior who knows too much about the vampire program and retired to a garlic farm in the wilds of Montana” or “archaeology student who opened the wrong tomb and is now a tour guide in the Vatican so he can stay on holy ground as much as possible”). The object in a Trace operation might be decades or even centuries old.
So, start with the object. How portable is it? How fragile? How valuable? How rare?
I'm not going to go into a lot of detail but I will describe this McGuffin as one-man portable, moderately fragile (as in you can drop it and it won't break, but it doesn't require Sauron's One Ring circumstances to destroy it) and unique.
I will also say that it was located in the Walled City from the late 1940s, when refugees first established the squatter's town that came to be Kowloon Walled City, till the Walled City's demolition in 1994. That it was damaged but not destroyed in the 1950s fire, that it first came to Edom's attention during the police raids in the 1970s, and that it is known to have been one of the last things to be taken out before demolition.
I will further posit that the players, and possibly the characters, can still access Kowloon Walled City in the modern day despite the demolition. Whether through dream, virtual reality, time travel, or having the players temporarily play characters who happened to be there at the time.
There was a Jackie Chan film, Crime Story, that used the Walled City in several scenes while it was deserted in 1993, before final demolition in 1994. That can be the last time anyone saw the McGuffin in Kowloon; some of the film crew saw it.
Kowloon Ghosts
The characters are tasked with Tracing a vampire McGuffin that is known to have been in China and removed to Hong Kong sometime between 1945 and 1946.
The relocation happened as a result of the Manchurian Invasion by the Soviets. Military Science, Research, Occult Studies establishes this first link in the chain. Possible Interrogation or Interview opportunity: Professor Chernenko, a military history expert who once interviewed a Soviet soldier who saw the McGuffin first-hand. The Professor is currently working at the University of Milan.
The 1950s fire damaged but not destroyed the McGuffin. Research, Occult Studies, Criminology discovers that the McGuffin changed hands from the mystic society that brought it to Kowloon to one of the criminal syndicates that controlled the Walled City. The Wo Shing Wo took it and would keep it for the next few decades. Whether the triad understood what it was or what it could do is open to question. Possible Interrogation or Interview opportunity: Kirkland, a student of the Tao and a self-proclaimed inheritor of the mysteries practiced by the original holders of the McGuffin. Kirkland is currently in San Francisco, operating a herbalist's shop.
Edom first became aware of the McGuffin during the 1970s raids. Research, Occult Studies, Tradecraft discover the intricacies of failed Edom recovery mission Operation PERIDOT and as a bonus may discover what really murdered Hong Kong Police staff sergeant Bernard Wei during that operation. Potential Interrogation or Interview opportunity: Lucy Wei, Bernard's daughter, currently living in London.
The McGuffin was last seen during the filming of Jackie Chan vehicle Crime Story in 1993. Some of the climactic scenes, including an explosive setpiece, were filmed in Kowloon Walled City. Research, Occult Studies, High Society, Photography discovers what happened next, or finds photographic proof of its existence and location at the time of filming. Possible Interrogation or Interview option: Andy Wong, one of the stunt actors, still hard at work in the Hong Kong film industry.
OPFOR: codename TIGER, a Jin-Gui who's seen it all through dead, black eyes. TIGER can send visions of Kowloon Walled City's past through its Send Dreams ability. TIGER uses its Illusion ability to masquerade as a family restaurant owner in Hong Kong (with zombies as the 'family'); the barbecue pork buns are to die for.
Current owner possibilities include:
- Blackie Ko, one of the cast of Crime Story, now deceased. Ko took it as a souvenir. Ko died in 2003; presumably his estate has it?
- Edom's Pearl, who keeps it at a private estate in Mumbai.
- Professor Chernenko, who tracked it down and is studying it. Perhaps in a crumbling castle somewhere in Italy ...
- A Conspiracy Node which spirited it out of Hong Kong to Macao. A triad linked to Wo Shing Wo has nominal possession, but the Node has actual control over it and plans to use it in some nefarious deed or other.
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