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Memorable, crazy movie

A Disappointing Continuation

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Taiwanese actor-turned-director Doze Niu's second feature film, MONGA is a local box-office knockout at the turn of 21st-century's second decade, notably for humbling the juggernaut AVATAR (2009) upon its release (grossed more than $8 millions, it is a humongous number for the itty-bitty island). Niu's film smartly harks back to the indigenous gangster counter-culture in the 1980s which is left with an indelible mark by auteur names like Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien, it takes place in the Monga ("Monga" means "little boat" in tribal dialect, it is today's Wanhua, Taipei's oldest district), local gangsters are safeguarding their respective turfs where street vendors, temples, brothels and their patrons are among the hustle and bustle peopled within the mazy, narrow alleys. A 17-year-old Mosquito (Mark Chao in his star-making movie debut) moves to Monga with his single mother (Lin Hsiu-ling), bullied by classmates in the school, he is recruited to the "Gang of Princes" as their fifth member, nominally lead by Dragon (Vaughn), the son of the triad leader Geta (Ma Ju-lung), but the real savvy one is the consigliere Monk (Ethan Ruan), whose devotion to Dragon roundly surpasses the usual purview of scorned brotherhood, and Niu acutely channels the tangible bromance into the narrative but camouflaged as a brotherly friendship, and leaves the signals hither and thither without asserting the obvious. Monk, as his name suggests, is the only one who shuns the brothel, but through his intimate interaction with Dragon, and the benign gestures with Mosquito, we don't need to be spoon-fed to understand what is his deal. Genre tropes start to encroach the gleeful tone when the quintet comes in for the usual hiccups, from a vapid girlfriend squabble, to a vengeful act (with super-glue) goes awry, until the impending annexing bid from a main-lander Grey Wolf (Niu himself, exuding understated menace but doesn't hog the spotlight by dint of his directorial clout), power-usurping is in the pipeline and assassinations begin to pick off the old-guards, which are designed in a cavalier fashion and to some degree distracts viewers from taking its graveness seriously. But a pivotal reveal portents the disintegration of their bond which will be topped off by blood-spilling fratricide, which also flags up Niu's penchant for over-egging the pudding with wordy elaboration albeit the stylish visual artistry (blood morphing into cherry blossom is a nice wrinkle).The central young cast is gratuitously photogenic and Mark Chao comes off as slightly stilted but acquits himself in Mosquito's greenness and the consequential disillusion. But the showstopper without any doubt is Ethan Ruan, who won a coveted BEST LEADING ACTOR trophy in the Golden Horse Awards, which is the most prestigious recognition from pan-Chinese cinema. His endeavor impresses with both physical exertion and copious pathos. In the main, MONGA breezes a bracing air into the teen-gangster genre, which usually entails a veto of a mainland China release due to its unlawful subjects, and subsists its ethnographic mark remarkably.

Monga is directed by Niu Chenze from Taiwan in 2010. This film is based on the mid-1980s in Taiwan as a background. The film related to five young teenagers who just out of school and the experiences of entry the gangsterdom (heishehui). The entire film revolves around brotherhood, interests, fight and conspiracy to develop the story plot. The genre of this film is drama. The story start in Taiwan that a place called Manga. A young boy, Zhouyiwen or mosquito, he was a timidity and kind boy; he has been bullied by others since he was little. He has not a father. Because of a drumstick, he met a several young people who living the gangster life. Also because of a drumstick he began his gangster life. They set up a group called Prince Gang. They often fight on the street, visits brothel and receive protection fees from others. As result of Li Zhilong's father, Geta, is a boss of Temple Front, no one can bully them. As the resentment of elder, they involved in that. Conflict and betrayal leads to them killing each other finally.I want to analyze two character mosquito and Heshang.The lead character, after met his four buddies, and he thought his life has meaningful suddenly. He thought they save his soul and brought a new world for him. In the film, there are have a one scene that is, when they climbed the wall and play truant go to outside, mosquito looked back and without hesitation to jumped the wall. I t seems tell us he wants to say goodbye to his past. This is my favorite place. He just knows the brotherhood is very important to him. He thought His buddies like his brother. Because of them, his life was becoming exciting even leave school he felt not matter. They protected him at school and celebrate his birthday. They help each other, they together do everything. All this, he was deeply moved by them. Compared with them, he is more innocent and kind. He is more like a follower. Just like the lines of film, "the grass flutters in the same direction as the wind blows". From this movie we can clearly see that mosquito aspires to paternal love. He was very envy Zhilong has a good father, he saw zhilong with his father sang a song together affectionate, he was touched by this scene. He cried, he hopes he was Zhilong and Geta was his father. Actually, in his heart, he has been thought Geta was his father. At the Temple Front, he saw Geta lying in the pool of blood, he was collapsed. After Geta dead, he replaced Zhilong attended the funeral. These evidences reflect mosquito was much respected Geta although his emotion was humble. He fell in love with Xiaoning, a hooker; he thought he could tell everything to Xiaoning. Particularly, he discovered the real gangster life is terrible, and the cruel ways of punish to others lead to him felt fear and thought of her as refuge.The other lead character, Heshang, he was clever, he and Zhilong grew up together, , they have exceeded the feelings between brothers. He knew his father's hand was cut off by Geta, he decided to revenged. At the same time, his heart was extremely contradictory. In the movie, when he found the missing Zhilong, he embraced him tightly, and he recalled the picture that he killed the Geta. He burst into tears loudly. He was much regretted. All the remorse in his mind is vent out in this moment. In the film's final, he chose to believe mosquito. Like mosquito said "you thought you goof the gangster life, in fact you goof the friendship and brotherhood". In fact, all of them are not had gangster life, they trust each other and not leave each other. Heshang's confusion, helplessness, sadness, and contradiction also are represents the other four. In this film, there are two lines repeated several times. "I only heard of brotherhood, never heard of meaning". And "If you don't killed them up today, once day you'll be killed". I think these two lines are influences them deeply.In this movie, there are two key points which are yo-yo and Sakura. They appeared many times in this movie. Heshang gave the new yo-yo to mosquito; mosquito was moved and takes this everywhere. He often plays yo-yo, Heshang was wounded, he sat on one side and holds yo-yo until he fell asleep. Mosquito make a nightmare, when he woke up the yo-yo on his pillow. They sat on the dam, the yo-yo issued weak light. In the end, mosquito use the line wanted to kill Heshang. It can be said, this yo-yo is witness their friendship breakdown. The other thing is Sakura, the combination of Sakura and blood is special point in the film. Progress to the end of the film, Heshang's blood spatter in the air and becomes the Sakura, this is mosquito always dreamed of seeing.All the character describing is based the story line, on that way; the story has already reflected the characters' temperament, experience, emotion. In addition, this film has well reflects the characteristics of Taiwan's local, exaggerated bright clothes, the Taiwan dialect and some lifestyle about Taiwan. Meanwhile, also reflects their idea is not very open and feudal, because they think the gun is evil and not accept the new culture. The film uses slow motion and soft music to balance the fight scenes, especially, five teenagers caused the fighting of all turfs in Monga.Overall, Monga has a very strong emotional color. This story is sad and dreary, everyone lose their important emotion. They never have gangster life, they just through the brotherhood to burning their life. This is the confusion of puberty and the pressure of real life to give a special significance.

This is an interesting big-budget commercial movie about gangsters in Taiwan. I've seen a few Taiwanese films about gangsters or criminals before, but none this polished. Monga is well-acted and has good cinematography. But there are several problems that I've seen with this film. Firstly, Dragon Lee looks very much like Tom Cruise, and if you have Tom Cruise as one of your lead gangsters (let alone in a Taiwanese film) then I have to say it's bad casting. Second thing that bothers me see the alternation between Taiwanese and Chinese being spoken by them. I have friends who speak Taiwanese only among each other, and no they do not alternate between Chinese; let alone gangsters in the 80's with proud Taiwanese heritage. Thirdly, Monga is too clean and nice in the movie. In reality many parts of Monga is a seedy place with many sketchy people and teenagers. There are much trash on the ground, run-down houses... but in the film there isn't much portrayal of the seediness and grittiness of the area. I can't feel the Monga that I knew in this movie. And that's the problem with commercial movies in Taiwan, where everything is just a bit too sanitized (English song played in the background, please).This film lacks a bit of realism. The violence is there, and the older gangsters do looked more real, but overall it could be better. It's nice to see the Taiwanese film industry begin to revive slowly, but I wish commercialism won't destroy this movement.

Monga is set in the 1980s, and it's a tale of two halves, the first of which is strikingly similar to The Days, being in a school setting, and setting the scene with the recruitment of a newbie into the ranks of a group of street punks, who call themselves The Prince Gang. Narrated by main protagonist nicknamed Mosquito (Mark Chao), a teenager with no friends and often a target for bullies, he soon finds the enticement of belonging to a group who swears loyalty amongst their ranks, giving him a shot into the dark side through an initiation rite that involves roughing up one's enemy. Typical modus operandi employed to get a newbie down the slippery slope of gangsterism, where first you win his impression, respect and loyalty, then he fights for all his brothers.But of course the Prince Gang is more than just a start up racket, with their de-facto leader Dragon Lee (Rhydian Vaughan) being the only son of Monga's Temple Front triad. We're soon introduced to the rest of Prince's crew, which includes the intelligent and brooding Monk (Ethan Ruan), the cowardly A-Po, and fighter Monkey. We're told of the team's dynamics and how Mosquito soon finds himself a loyal member of the group, who spend most of their time playing truant to while away at their hideout, or to visit prostitutes, where Mosquito soon falls for a hooker with a large facial birthmark (Ko Chia Yen), beginning a romantic subplot that's tender enough not to get in the way of the main narrative.The first half of the film puts the spotlight on the shenanigans of this youthful group as they go around squandering their lives away from school, and into fights. Unlike Crows Zero where schoolboys trounce each other with far out powers, the fights here is almost balletic in delivery, and serves as quite the highlight, especially with their kill or be killed mantra. Like a cautionary tale, it tells of how impressionable teenagers can be especially when showed with much needed attention and gifts, which comes with the price-tag of eternal loyalty.Loyalty though seems like a dirty word however, especially when there's always that temptation and rationale of serving self-interest first, or when it boils down to a family matter, where real kin blood runs thicker than water or even brotherhood. It's a walkthrough the Monga ecosystem where we learn of the various turfs set, and how scary the gangsters with real powers can be, being seemingly everyday persons on the streets, and quite nonchalant about their position as gangster chiefs, though coming complete with uncouth, vulgar vocabulary to betray their calm business fronts.Just as we're getting comfortable and chummy with the Prince Gang, the narrative turns on its head as it enters a darker phase in the run up to the finale, with a boot camp for martial arts training in various Chinese weapons being the middle point where boys are trained to become men of war. Everything becomes more serious as Prince Gang unfortunately gets woken up to inevitable reality, and while faced with a potential internal strife, things don't look all too sunny at Monga with the advent of the Mainland Chinese gangsters who are salivating at a hostile takeover.It is here that Doze Niu himself comes to the forefront as Crazy Wolf from the Mainland, up against the established Monga powers such as Boss Geta played by Ma Ju Lung, both actors putting up powerful, riveting veteran performances in contrast to the teen idols Ethan Juan and Mark Chao who do hold their own, but certainly the gulf in charisma is obvious. The latter half becomes a commentary on the fear of change, of being inside a comfort zone, that any threat to change the status quo is a declaration of an all out, no holds barred war. It's almost akin to any situation where the incumbent almost always feel threatened by change, and to put it into our own topical context, how we rationalize our fears toward new immigrants into our land who inevitably shake up what we hold dear, and some having total disregard to what has preceded, but to want to stamp their own brand of the way things get done.It is this half that examines what loyalty really means, whether lip service or something to be carried out with honour, and the narrative spins into a hydra of subplots, all of which will get addressed as the film races toward the end with plenty of urgency and closure. You'll be kept glued to the screen for the most parts of its extended narrative which encompassed plenty of themes and ideas, and the characterization here will definitely make you feel something for all the characters, making you care whether they live through their ordeal, or not, which is telling of the strength of the story and storytellers involved. And I'll say it again, the fight scenes here are stylishly filmed, complete with blood and gore and with fluidity (love those one take, sweeping camera motion), even though we have to suffer the unceremonious censor scissors every now and then for this NC-16 rated film.To the local audience, you may already be familiar with gangster flicks such as The Days from last year. Monga though, makes that look like child's play, and the Crows Zero films really look too out of this world given Monga's ultra-realistic setting. If gangster flicks are up your alley, then don't let this one pass you by as it's highly recommended!