Lee Rock

Lee Rock joins the Hong Kong police in the fifties. At first he refuses to take bribes, but the way the force works is built on them: the pay is low, promotions are bought, and every piece of business in the district runs on a cut. Money trouble and pressure from above draw him step by step into the same arrangement. The higher he rises, the more powerful and the more dependent he becomes. The character rests on a real person: Lui Lok, the station sergeant who was very powerful in the Hong Kong police through the sixties and into the early seventies. Known in the press as the five-hundred-million detective, Lui Lok left the territory in 1973 as the anti-corruption body ICAC was being set up and did not return; the film's Chinese title carries that nickname. Andy Lau does not present the character as a hero, but does not cut the audience off from him either. A sequel followed the same year.