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Exclusive | The Goldfinger film director says greed, financial illiteracy expose Hongkongers to scams
- Felix Chong, director of The Goldfinger movie that chronicles the Carrian saga, suggests why Hongkongers continue to fall prey to bigger scams today
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The Goldfinger, Hong Kong’s latest box-office hit starring Tony Leung and Andy Lau, is based on a 1983 case that is still one of the city’s biggest financial frauds. But it rings true even today as Hongkongers keep losing their hard-earned fortunes to scams and deceptions in their pursuit of quick riches.
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The film, which was released at the end of last year, chronicles the bankrupt Carrian group under George Tan Soon-gin, which collapsed in a web of corruption and murder and inflicted severe losses on stock investors and banks.
The breadth and complexity of that crime has not diminished with passing time, and scams continue to snare fresh victims. Deception cases surged 43 per cent in 2023 and losses reached a record HK$9.18 billion (US$1.15 billion), official figures showed, including HK$5.9 billion involving investment scams.
The Goldfinger’s director and screenwriter Felix Chong Man-keung, who knew people involved in the Carrian scandal, shared his thoughts with the Post about his film and how the Carrian episode compares with today’s sophisticated scams.
What made you come up with a film based on this fraud?
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