The Drummer (Kenneth Bi, Hong Kong/Taiwan/Germany, 2008)

The somewhat different Hong Kong-Taiwanese gangster film

In terms of festival circuit performance, The Drummer has done quite well: it has been nominated for prizes at the Golden Horse Film Festival and Hong Kong Film Awards, and is even the first film from Hong Kong and Taiwan to be selected for competition at Sundance.

And in terms of substance, The Drummer does an equally good job. Director Kenneth Bi starts off by using Hong Kong gangster genre film elements. Sid (Jaycee Chan), the reckless drummer son of Kwan (award-winning Tony Leung), a local gang leader, gets into trouble after sleeping with the wife of rival gang boss Ma (Kenneth Tsang). Ma demands compensation; Kwan covers for Sid and sends him into exile in Taiwan. With quick-paced editing, facial close-ups and a fiery performance from Tony Leung as the loving but strict and rather overbearing gangster father, an underlying violence comparable to that which characterises gangster pieces by Bi's contemporary, Johnny To (like Mad Detective, Exiled), is created.

But Kenneth Bi innovatively interjects the gangster backdrop with a surprising, peaceful middle section that borrows from musicals (minus the glib songs and dance) and stage performances, like Riverdance. Here, the actual Zen drummers of Taiwan's renowned U-Theatre drum group play themselves living and practicing in seclusion on a mountain in Taiwan. Sid encounters them on his exile, and after completing some prerequisite chores, he becomes a member and later a transformed person. Sam Koa on camera carefully captures the impressive drum numbers, and Kenneth Bi even gets philosophical about the relationship between man and music.

The film does end like a gangster film: Sid returns to Hong Kong with U-Theatre to tour, but is confronted with the sudden murder of his father, plotted by his own right-hand man, Ah Chiu (Roy Cheung). But because the director injects the formula with a creative twist, maintains a humorous touch and uses a band of able actors and actresses, he has created something that is different--and constantly entertaining.