MovieChat Forums > Duet ming gam (2011) Discussion > betraying morals and principles

betraying morals and principles


This may be an obtuse question, but here goes: the synopsis for this film reads "Three people - a criminal, a bank officer and a cop - end up in a catastrophic situation in the midst of a global economical crisis and are forced to betray any morals and principles to solve their financial problems." Of course, this dovetails with the film's title. However, I fail to appreciate how the criminal and the cop betray any morals or principles to solve their financial problems. The only principle the criminal seemed to acknowledge was loyalty and I thought he stayed pretty faithful to that. He does leave his moribund "blood brother" to go play the stock market, but he does it at the other's request and I had the sense that he was betting for both their sakes. Is there some indication to the contrary? Likewise, I thought the resolution of the cop's financial problems was entirely out of his hands and happened only as a result of the Greek bailout. What did I miss?

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I think you're absolutely right. It's interesting that those two characters you mentioned - the cop who's devoted only to his job and the loyal Triad gangster - are the two people in the movie who most resemble Johnnie To's 'stock' characters or archetypes.

I think Johnnie To was tackling a new genre for himself with this movie - he's done thrillers before but not financial ones...and by placing those familiar characters in the setting, I suspect it was his means of navigating uncertain territory. And those guys really don't change, despite everything that happens to them.

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