2/5 stars
Andy Lau Tak-wah plays a deadly assassin whose identity is stolen by an opportunistic young actor (Xiao Yang) in the raucous action comedy Endgame.
In this remake of the 2016 Korean hit Luck-Key, which was itself a retooling of Japanese comedy Key of Life (2012), writer-director Rao Xiaozhi (A Cool Fish) sets his sights on China’s economic divide, but hits the mark most often when undermining the superstar persona of his leading man.
Chen Xiaomeng (Xiao) is at the end of his rope. His dream of becoming a movie star has yielded nothing beyond sporadic casting as an extra, and so, drowning in debt, he resolves to kill himself. When even that fails, he abandons his squalid flat for the local bathhouse, where he encounters the wealthy, sophisticated Zhou (Lau), a mysterious stranger who promptly slips on a bar of soap and cracks his head on the tiled floor.
Chen seizes the opportunity not to help him, but to switch locker keys, and therefore identities, with the unconscious man. After helping himself to Zhou’s designer suit, wristwatch and luxury car – and oblivious to the dead body in the boot – Chen makes his way to Zhou’s opulent high-rise flat, which contains an array of conflicting IDs, and a mountain of cash.
Just as Chen is getting comfortable with his new-found wealth and status, he is contacted by Zhou’s client, a rambunctious female gang boss (Cheng Yi) demanding he complete the murderous assignment for which he was hired. Zhou, meanwhile, wakes up in hospital, unable to remember anything, and is told he is a 32-year-old failed actor.
With the help of Li Xiang (Wan Qian), a sympathetic single mum, he returns home to Chen’s rundown lodgings. Oblivious to the truth, Zhou spruces up the place and heads out to find work, and over time grows closer to Li and her young son.
Endgame includes flashes of inspired satire, as Lau – one of the biggest stars in Asia – wanders obliviously around film sets, ruining takes with his terrible acting, while attempting to pass for someone half his actual age. Rao even scores some big-name cameos from industry heavy hitters; sadly, the director seems more invested in the film’s uninspired crime narrative, and relies heavily on frenetic pacing and visual motifs to distract from its generic plotting.
After a flashy opening, a languid, unfocused second act saps the film of all its momentum. By the time Endgame reaches its own end game, audiences will probably feel just as tired and confused as its hero.
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