Directed by: Wong Ching-po || Produced by: Lee Lieh, Roger Huang
Screenplay by: Wong Ching-po || Starring: Ethan Juan, Ben Yuen, Chen Yi-wen, Gingle Wang, Lee Lee-zen, Cherry Hsieh
Music by: Luming Lu, Lin Hsiao-Chin, Lin Sih-yu, Baobu Badulu || Cinematography: Jimmy Wong || Edited by: Wong Ching-po || Country: Taiwan || Language: Mandarin, Cantonese
Running Time: 134 minutes
When I wanted to sample Chinese cinema in the past, I most always deferred to Hong Kong (Cantonese) cinema given the island city’s rich history of film innovation in both dramatic and genre cinema, even if I wasn’t enamored with certain auteurs that the critical viewership loved. I tended to avoid mainland Chinese cinema, by contrast, thanks to the latter’s culture of artistic censorship and more recent inclination toward simplistic, FX-heavy blockbusters that seemed to mimic the talky, bland, melodramatic tentpole movies from other cultures. There were always exceptions to those rules, of course, but I noticed my consumption of Chinese cinema, Cantonese, Mandarin, or otherwise, decrease following the de facto absorption of Hong Kong into the mainland cultural sphere in the late 2010s-early 2020s.
What may substitute for Hong Kong cinema of late, however, is the film culture of another Chinese nation, entity, or rogue state, depending on your politics: Taiwan, also known as the Republic of China. My first Taiwanese film ever was the Rob Jabbaz-written and directed horror feature, The Sadness (2021), over which I continue to have mixed feelings but have always respected for its clear auteur-stamp. How much that feature and others since (e.g. The Abandoned [2022]) contrasted with Communist Party-approved releases from the Han Chinese mainland reminded me of the rebellious, eclectic film spirit of Hong Kong, which soon led me to Wong Ching-Po’s The Pig, the Snake, & the Pigeon.
The first two acts of The Pig, the Snake, and the Pigeon feel like a conventional Cantonese action-crime drama hybrid with rough close-quarters combat (left) and agile chase scenes (right) aplenty.
Ironically not only allowed release on the mainland this year (2024) but also well received there, the stylish, violent action and grungy anti-hero vibe of The Pig, the Snake, & the Pigeon (henceforth, PSP) make sense once you take into account Wong’s Hong Kong background. Its unadulterated, morbid tone and eccentric, unglamorous, yet memorable characters feel ripped from a Johnnie To or John Woo classic, as does its mild dark comedy once those characters wallow in each other’s misery. To be clear, PSP is not an immaculate gem of a crime drama-action thriller — those ubiquitous, obvious digital blood squibs I can’t escape in Western cinema are just a feature of world cinema now, I suppose, as are unnecessarily long runtimes —- but it is a quality film that deserves attention from East Asian genre aficionados regardless of where they live.
PSP follows protagonist Ethan Juan on a bizarre odyssey to achieve criminal underworld infamy once he is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Having recently lost his last remaining family members, Juan decides to embrace his violent criminal persona one last time by hunting down and eliminating the second and first “most wanted” criminals in Taiwan because, well, he’s only ranked number three. The only wrinkle to this narrative that feels somewhat underutilized is the hardboiled cop (Lee Lee-zen) hot on his trail (sort of) that Juan partially blinds in the bonkers prologue set-piece. Lee’s rivalry/obsession with Juan could’ve been an interesting twist to the already unconventional story, but I suppose the movie is long enough without it.
Aside from the memorable premise, the biggest selling points of PSP are twofold: Juan’s lead performance as a fastidious, obsessive hitman with a rather dry sense of humor, and the aforementioned action scenes that intermix a variety of tracking shots (e.g., unstabilized handheld, Steadicams, drones, etc.) with rough, well choreographed fisticuffs. Writer-director Wong incorporates the urban environments as well as various props into the action for both painful stunts and physical, almost slapstick humor. The violence feels like it emerges organically from Juan’s on-screen personality as well as those of his opponents (e.g. Lee, Ben Yuen as the titular Snake, Chen Yi-wen as the titular Pigeon, etc.).
The final act of the movie is where things get weird as protagonist Ethan Juan meets secondary antagonist Chen Yi-wen (center, background), who leads a new religious movement (re: cult). Nothing suspicious going on, here!
Much of the film lets Juan breathe as our domineering yet highly flawed main character. His arc balances his colorful, identifiable personality with audience relatability (i.e. he never frustrates the viewer with naive decisions nor compromises his character for narrative convenience) so that his significant third act growth feels earned. Much of this character development is thanks to the memorable supporting cast and the antagonists (Yuen and Chen) most of all, as they fight Juan tooth and nail through dramatic dialogue-driven scenes as much as through cinematic violence.
If you’re in the mood for old-school Hong Kong action but have grown too familiar with the likes of Jackie Chan, John Woo, or Johnnie To, The Pig, the Snake, and the Pigeon by Wong Ching-po will give you many of the same feelings in a modern package. It isn’t the greatest crime drama I’ve seen this decade or the best action movie I’ve watched from East Asia in the past few years, but that’s because I’ve seen many solid movies in both those categories due to my voracious cinephile appetite. The artistic sidelining of Hong Kong film should feel unfortunate regardless of one’s political inclinations, but for the time being, there’s another ethnic Chinese enclave that beckons with its own weird genre formula.
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SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATION: With hard-hitting action and memorable personalities, The Pig, the Snake, and the Pigeon embraces the cinematic appeal of using oddball, violent characters to drive crime drama narratives. Traces of various classic gangster films abound in Wong Ching-Po’s latest, but in all the best ways as Ethan Juan presents his version of the charismatic hitman.
— However… at 134 minutes, The Pig, the Snake, and the Pigeon overstays its welcome, particularly with respect to an overindulgent epilogue, while its plethora of distracting digital gore confuses me. Lee Lee-zen’s relationship with Juan is underdeveloped.
—> RECOMMENDED for a filthy, chaotic time.
? I don’t see Juan’s protagonist apologizing to any society for his crimes prior to execution.
Express Elevator to Hell 
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