Though Smashing Frank has a promising premise, the movie ultimately proves a disappointment due to its hackneyed and incoherent plot. This proves a disappointment for the first crowdfunded Hong Kong film.
Smashing Frank follows Ayla, a young juvenile delinquent, and her boyfriend Hugo. Enraged at the inequality of Hong Kong society, the couple recruit two peers to form a criminal gang: the naive truck driver Chun and his former accomplice, the seductress Chelsea.
This gang calls itself Frank, and it comes to be known among the Hong Kong public for livestreaming its spectacular crimes targeting the rich and powerful. With Ayla masterminding its criminal plots, Frank eventually comes to target Unity Haven, a corrupt Catholic church rumored to be involved in money laundering.
As it turns out, Unity Haven is involved in worse–human trafficking. Frank, then, finds itself not only in conflict with the authorities, but also the powerful oligarch Ho, who runs Unity Haven in addition to owning jewelry stores across Hong Kong.
If all this sounds like it has the makings of a great film–something like Fruit Chan’s Made in Hong Kong meets Persona 5–Smashing Frank unfortunately does not live up to such expectations. Indeed, Chan was previously involved in Smashing Frank’s production before an eventual shift in direction that led to his departure.
To begin with, Smashing Frank’s ability to commit crimes in broad daylight–livestreaming their actions and still managing to escape–comes off as nonsensical. Though the movie could have gotten around this pitfall by stylizing their antics, it barely does so. In a city that saw police crackdowns on youthful protestors as recently as 2019, deploying advanced surveillance technology and tracking equipment, Frank’s ability to get away with crimes seems all the more illogical.
The members of Smashing Frank are also mostly one-note characters. Ayla is coldly determined, but little else. Her boyfriend, Hugo, is mostly defined by his dreadlocks and his devotion to Ayla. Chun is guileless, while Chelsea proves exactly the opposite, as the most conniving one of the bunch. But there is little else to them.
Indeed, it proves somewhat of a surprise when the ending of the film frames Ayla as the protagonist—despite there being little indication before that Ayla is, in fact, the main character. But the antagonists of the movie fare even worse. We are barely given any reason as viewers to detest Ho, except that he is wealthy, corrupt, and is probably an oblique metaphor for the Hong Kong authorities themselves in an environment in which Hong Kong filmmakers are not so openly able to criticize authorities.
Certainly, Smashing Frank reflects the anger of young people toward the establishment in the years after the 2019 Anti-ELAB protests–especially as directed against rising inequality in the city-state. And yet, even in spite of the creative challenges that must result from filmmaking that occurs in an increasingly authoritarian context, Smashing Frank simply is not a very well-executed film.
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Smashing Frank (Chinese: 搗破法蘭克)—Hong Kong. Dialog in Cantonese. Directed by Trevor Choi. First released March 20, 2025. Running time 1hr 28min. Starring Hedwig Tam, Locker Lam, Kaki Sham.
This article is part of Cinema Escapist‘s dedicated coverage of the 2025 New York Asian Film Festival.
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