The Goldfinger review – labyrinthine Hong Kong financial crime thriller

Writer-director Felix Chong, co-writer of the Hong Kong crime picture Infernal Affairs (remade by Martin Scorsese as The Departed), reunites with the stars of that picture, Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau, for what is rumoured to be one of the most expensive Hong Kong films ever produced. The Goldfinger is a 70s and 80s-set gilt-framed mirror maze of a movie that delves into investigations of financial irregularities and criminal conspiracy on the part of super-smug moneybags Ching Yat-yin (a perma-smirking Leung) and his company, here called the Carmen Group. Heading the case, and fielding a team of 112 sharp-suited forensic accountants, is the Independent Commission Against Corruption investigator Lau Kai-yuen (Lau). Loosely based on the real-life case of the Carrian Group, this has the brash swagger of The Wolf of Wall Street, but the labyrinthine intricacies of the case may present something of a challenge to anyone not well versed in stock market manipulation.