The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon (2023)

"One mistake can lead to irreversible regret"

The Pig, the Snake, and the Pigeon was a tough film to rate and harder to review. The film showed how different people react when death stares them in the eye. Do you attempt to mend your ways or seek a lasting legacy no matter how reprehensible?

Chen Kui Lin aka the Kuilin Kid made a name for himself by taking out not one, but two mob bosses. While lying low he discovers from a pharmacist who treats gangsters that he has stage 4 lung cancer. She works to convince him to do the right thing and turn himself in. After praying to General Guan and tossing the divination sticks nine times he goes to the police station to do just that. Problem being that an armored car had turned over and people were lined up to turn in the money they’d pilfered. While waiting he sees a wanted poster with the top three fugitives. He was ranked #3. At that moment he determines to take out the top two to improve his legacy.

The first half of the film had numerous brutal, no holds barred fights between Kui Lin and the cop Chen Hui and between Kui Lin and Hongkie. Hongkie was vile, a rapist, and deadly. No tears shed for anything bad happening to him. The second half of the film delved into the spiritual side and repentance. Even a killer like Kui Lin could grasp at the thread of hope. At least before the violence erupted into new disturbing levels.

I’ve never been an Ethan Juan fan but I have to admit he did an admirable job as the killer who could murder people easily but could also be quite affable and charming. He rescued at least two people and tried to save a third. That didn’t mean he was a good guy and it would be wrong to idolize him. His last violent act disturbed me greatly and threw me into a moral quandary attempting to understand his reasoning.* The final twist wasn’t much of a twist and in the end, it didn’t matter, at least to Kui Lin.

The Pig, the Snake, and the Pigeon had high production values and well shot fight scenes. The acting was quite good and Ethan Juan made it hard to not feel some empathy for his character. The story could be uneven and the final third of the film took too long to resolve. Far from glorifying the gangster lifestyle, it showed that three evils no matter how fair or repugnant they might appear to be needed to be vanquished. Interestingly, only one facing death had the courage to do something unorthodox to rid society of the animalistic ills.

3 March 2024


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The only way I could resolve the massacre at the cult was that after all the evil they had done including murder and destroying at least one child’s future, he thought they would continue their wicked ways . Many of the people in the cult who did not heed his warning knew it was a scam and were enforcers and the others who stayed behind were either in on it or so brainwashed that would continue to drive people to suicide or murder when ordered. The ambiguity of the ones left behind who were killed was very distressing to me and why I didn’t rate this film higher.
In the end, Kui Lin paid for his crimes and the pharmacist who got her three birds, actually a whole flock, with one stone was also facing a painful death herself.

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I once wandered aimlessly, on the dark night road.....

It is exactly what the synopsis says, but more. Go in blind.

Expect gory action, good cinematography and acting. But also surprising amount of psychological depth and many things left for interpretation.

How do people react to possibility of their own demise? Some cry, some laugh, some are calm, some chose death willingly, some fight to survive to the end.....people don't want to die, and faced with inevitable, they try to give their existence and demise some meaning. Knowing the reason why, or passing away thinking they did something good, trying to find inner peace.....Trying to secure salvation in the afterlife, or making sure they will leave a legacy in the mortal world.

In the end it's just various flavors of cope, because the end result is the same. But the movie doesn't judge which cope is better, it doesn't tell us the audience that "oh this death was pathetic" or "oh this death was awesome". The narrative is non-judgmental, perhaps it expects us the audience to do the judgement?

Also, on a less philosophical note, the mc prayed to Guan Yu, which for me as a european fan of three kingdoms is hilarious. I heard about cult of guan yu in china, but this is the first time I have actually seen it. Do you think if he prayed to Cao Cao or Lu Bu instead things would have ended up differently?

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