Review: ‘Operation Mekong,’ a film by Dante Lam

by Andrew Parker

Operation Mekong, the latest film from Chinese action maestro Dante Lam, is only a Cannon Films logo and the casting of Chuck Norris or Charles Bronson in a major role away from being one of the biggest cult hits of 1985. Unfortunately, it’s a somewhat self-serious war on drugs flick that doesn’t seem to fully realize how goofy it all is. That’s not to say that Operation Mekong isn’t occasionally lots of fun, but I don’t think it’s entirely intended to be a mirthful experience.

“Inspired by a true story” (words that ring pretty hollow here), the film begins with the slaughter of thirteen Chinese fishermen along the Mekong River while travelling through the Golden Triangle along the border of Myanmar and Thailand. The massacre was carried out by a group tied not only to a ruthless Burmese drug syndicate responsible for using the river to traffic billions in methamphetamine throughout the region, but also to crooked local Thai authorities who helped to frame the unsuspecting and helpless fishermen as drug runners. It was an international incident that led to the formation of an undercover task force made up of Chinese, Thai, Laotian, and Burmese officials designed to take down the cartel and clear the names of those who lost their lives.

It’s a perfect premise to craft a large scale, espionage packed, action thriller around, and it isn’t until the very end when Lam somewhat obliviously dedicates Operation Mekong to the memory of those who lost their lives in the massacre that I realized that the filmmaker was taking this all far more seriously than he should have. It’s already too serious for its own good. It follows the same playbook as films like The Delta Force, Missing in Action, Crack House, and Death Wish 4: The Crackdown. It preys on the same kind of “tough on drugs” mentality that American action flicks of the 1980s thrived on with just the right amount of right wing posturing and fear mongering that’s needed to give the film some degree of intensity. But to dedicate something this patently ludicrous to those who lost their lives in a 2011 tragedy that actually happened doesn’t seem that noble since the wall to wall carnage and bloodshed on display in Lam’s film is surely what everyone on that boat probably wanted to avoid themselves.

I digress. The team is headed up by a Chinese official (Zhang Hanyu) and his band of loyal soldiers and tech nerds, each with a code name straight out of Greek mythology, including, quite improbably, a brother and sister pairing. Their primary link to the underworld is Pierre (Eddie Peng), a multilingual chameleon and virtual master of disguise. It’s never entirely apparent what side of the law Pierre is on, but when a face from his past makes the mission personal, he dabbles with ignoring the team’s mandate to take people in alive (something that still doesn’t stop the team from killing their targets in the first place).

Their main target: Naw Khar (Pawarith Monkolpisit), the Burmese head of the cartel who you know is a real asshole because he (A) uses brainwashed, drug addicted child soldiers, (B) forces locals to do his bidding under penalty of death or dismemberment, (C) uses strung out meth addicts when child soldiers are unavailable, (D) is missing most of his front teeth, (E) has nothing but gold plated firearms, (F) always has cocaine on his face, (G) has a cave full of cash and gold bars in case of an emergency, and (H) has a mullet. Tony Montana would tell this guy to chill out.

I almost forgot. The task force has a dog. It’s a happy looking German Shepherd. His name is Bingo. He has ninja-like hiding abilities. He’s unarguably the most heroic and likable character in the film. I would be doing you, the reader, great disservice without mentioning that a dog has a major part in the team dynamic.

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The plot is simplistic to a point where one can almost hear Ice Cube repeating the phrase “infiltrate the dealers and find the suppliers” to the audience as if this were 21 Jump Street. Most of the plot is an excuse for Lam’s constantly moving camera to capture slow motion car wrecks, shopping mall shootouts, daring zipline escapes from enemy strongholds, and a final thirty minute militaristic extravaganza that makes the similarities to The Delta Force so blatant that one feels like they’ve been transported to the mid-1980s. There’s no way that storming a heavily fortified cartel stronghold with a handful of cops and two helicopters is a good idea, but they weight the odds they were doing something heroic versus the odds they were doing something stupid, and they went ahead and did it anyway.

Some of this is in pretty bad taste, particularly in terms of how it handles children. The government of Thailand looks as evil as humanly possible. Not only are child soldiers used several times to kill or blow up buildings, but some are even shot without a second thought by the heroes. Two child soldiers play Russian roulette dressed like extras from The Deer Hunter while their boss watches gleefully. But in the film’s funniest moment, a villain throws a baby at one of the heroes in the middle of a fight scene as a weapon. Don’t worry, though. The infant is okay unlike the literal hundreds of other soldiers, crackheads, kids, animals, and innocent bystanders that are offed across the two hour running time of Operation Mekong.

And yet, the zeal with which Lam directs everything is as undeniably cheesy as action filmmaking ever gets. I think he takes Operation Mekong very seriously, but that doesn’t mean I have to. I don’t feel like this is a film that benefits from watching it in a theatre or at home via on demand. This should be watched at a drive-in, at a decrepit grindhouse on 42nd Street in New York City, or from a VHS tape with severe tracking problems. Since none of those things exist anymore, you’ll just have to make do.

Operation Mekong opens at select cinemas in Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver on September 30.

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1 comment

Sean Tierney October 6, 2016 - 4:31 am

Actually, the leader is Zhang Hanyu, and Eddie Peng is the informant. Carl Ng is the initial contact with the bad guys.

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