One of Hong Kong's biggest box office draws in 1997, Michael Mak's Island of Greed is a highly-budgeted and ambitious look into the dirtier side of Taiwanese politics. Even though lead actor Tony Leung Ka-Fai gives his all in a performance that garnered him a Hong Kong Film Award nomination, and there are some impressive set pieces directed by Yuen Bun that also got a nod from the HKFAs, the meandering and confusing script -- the one major part of the movie that really shouldn't have gotten a HKFA nomination, but did -- will most likely end up putting off many viewers.

"Big" Tony stars as Chow Chiu-Sin, a gangster who has made a fortune on underground gambling dens and is now making a bid to become a county commissioner in order to get his mitts into juicy government construction contracts. Chow has the (sometimes forced) support of the locals, and has bribed the proper politicians, so his election seems to be a sure thing. But an anti-corruption officer, Fong Gwok-Fai (Andy Lau), is determined to stop Chow at any cost, including turning the streets of Taipei into a virtual war zone.

The basic set-up here is good enough, and Tony Leung's take on Chow, which ranges from melodramatic scenery-chewing to genuine emotion, is compelling material. Combined with a HKFA-nominated performance from the under-rated Pauline Suen as Tony's wife and huge action scenes that involve things like literally hundreds of taxi drivers getting into a street brawl, you would think that Island of Greed would be top-tier material.

Unfortunately, to get to the good parts here, you have to wade through a lot of chum. At over two hours, Island of Greed feels more than a bit bloated, especially since so much screen time is devoted to Andy Lau's character, who ultimately comes off as useless and out of place. Maybe it was due to burnout from appearing in dozens of films during the early to mid 1990's, but Andy looks like he's totally bored and doesn't give a shit here.

Instead of taking screen time to focus on Andy and sub-plots like a romance he has with a reporter (Annie Wu) that end up going nowhere, Island of Greed would have been much better served by keeping the emphasis on Tony Leung, especially since he seemed to be hell-bent on showing just how well he could act after being virtually black-balled from the Hong Kong film industry for a while after a well-publicized arrest for drunk driving.

Andy's role seems to have been shoehorned into the movie to please Mainland censors, who frown upon any glorification (whether real or perceived) of Triad characters, and his work on Island of Greed reflects that, grinding down the film's momentum most times when he's on-screen, especially when he's in throwaway scenes like buying food for his cats.

Yes, I'm serious. There's a scene where Andy is contemplating which brand of 9 Lives to purchase for his "children". And he actually carries a picture of the pussies in his wallet. This is supposed to be our hero? I guess I should be grateful that the scene wasn't in slow-motion and accompanied by one of his syrupy Cantopop ballads, but it was at that point that I checked out of the movie. Despite the impressive pyrotechnics of the final act, Island of Greed never managed to fully pull me back in.

RATING: 5