Fight for Tomorrow 拼命三郎 Review: Chan Tai-Lee’s Otherwise Predictable But Feel-Good Drama Features Patrick Tam at His Best
Tomorrow is yet another day for writer-director Chan Tai-Lee’s Fight for Tomorrow, swapping from his 2018 debut feature’s struggling middle-aged mother and autistic son angle to a familiar tale of redemption about a washed-up father trying to make things right for his disaffected son. Just like Chan brought out the best in Teresa Mo’s then-rare dramatic lead performance to her Hong Kong Film Awards glory, winning her the much-deserved Best Actress statuette, he manages to pull off the same feat again with Patrick Tam.
Personally, the last time Tam made a lasting impression was over 25 years ago in his award-winning supporting performance in Beast Cops. And while he did showcase some good acting in later movies like Triad, Ip Man 3 and the Breakout Brothers trilogy, I still can’t help but find none of his performances reach the same height seen in his acting breakthrough. But I’m glad Fight for Tomorrow finally lands him the chance to prove that he can go higher. Not to mention, a rare opportunity to see him in a leading role.
From the moment he enters the frame playing Shek Sam-Long, it’s difficult not to root for his character. We learn that he used to be a big-time gangster who had everything, including money, women and power. But his glory days were long gone after he ended up in prison, and now, he’s nothing more than a guy working as a parking valet. He always dreams of becoming a boss, opening a nightclub someday, but he can’t even secure a loan.
One night after getting involved in a fight with a few angry gangsters, he gets arrested by the police and brought back to the station, where he coincidentally stumbles upon his son, Shek Tau (Locker Lam). Apparently, Shek Tau has committed a crime and made an enemy. That enemy in question is a wealthy boxer, David (Ying Chi-Yuet), whose father happens to be Sam-Long’s former fellow triad member, Lee Man-Sei (Mark Cheng), whom they used to work together with the same boss.
Chan Tai-Lee treads familiar ground with the kind of story you have seen many times in the past: A father trying to reconcile with his son, where they don’t get along at first. Shek Tau hates his father because he’s hardly there for him all the while. But Sam-Long has his reasons, one of which has to do with his estranged ex-wife (Sherming Yiu). Shek Tau himself has been leading an aimless life, working various odd jobs before he finally sets a goal of his own: to train as a Muay Thai fighter in a quest to win the Hong Kong Youth Muay Thai Championship.
The Muay Thai tournament angle is more of a subplot, but at the same time, it also allows Tai-Lee to explore the bonding of the father-son dynamic between Sam-Long and Shek Tau, where the former happens to be skilled in fighting and self-defence. Not surprisingly, the obligatory training montage soon takes place, and despite all the formulaic structure, Fight for Tomorrow remains watchable, thanks to Tam and Lam’s solid chemistry playing the respective father and son. The fight scenes, in the meantime, are crisply staged with enough grit under the action direction of German Cheung and Chan Chun-Fung.
Fight for Tomorrow was shot during the pandemic era, a trying time where everyone was affected in many ways. It may have been a depressing subject matter, but Tai-Lee made use of the real-world scenario to see things optimistically by mirroring his characters like Sam-Long and Shek Tau’s plights in overcoming the challenges, namely how the two eventually bury the hatchet and start anew, bringing in a sense of feel-good factor into the movie. Even Sam-Long’s character traits are purposefully written as someone strong, resilient and perseverant, no matter the situation.
