It might seem like one of Hong Kong director Johnnie To’s most captivating mafia films, if it weren’t for reality. In a three-episode investigation, Antoine Vitkine takes a stunning dive into the mysterious world of triads.

Through testimonies, from the godfather to the small press, he tells how these organizations imposed themselves and interacted with those in power, whether in Taiwan, Hong Kong or mainland China, to become one of the most powerful in the world. global crime.

The aptly named “Iron Tyrant”, 56, opens up in front of the cameras for the first time. Like him, in turn, “the Scoundrel”, “the Crop” or “the Slugger” tell the story, through their journey, of the methods and structures of these secret criminal societies.

Political turning points

The other virtue of this work is its historical depth, unfolding the presence of the triads at all political turning points. In 1911, they supported Sun Yat-sen to bring down Qing imperial China. In the Shanghai of the foreign concessions of the 1920s, they made their fortune on the miserable lives of young prostitutes and opium addiction and put themselves in the service of Chiang Kai-shek to massacre thousands of communist workers.

With the victory of Mao Zedong in 1949, while 2 million Kuomintang sympathizers went into exile in Taiwan, the same triads were at the heart of the repression of the local population opposed to the power of the nationalist leader on the island, where From 1947 onwards, almost four decades of “white terror” began.

The scandal of the assassination, in 1984, of a critical journalist, Henry Liu, exiled in San Francisco, by members of the Bamboo Union triad (or United Bamboo), in the pay of the regime, initiated the democratization of Taiwan . The story is known but this time it is “White Wolf” who recounts the tricks of “Dry Duck”, boss of the triad who, before falling, had taken care to register, denouncing the head of intelligence .

The documentary recounts, with an absolutely unprecedented richness, the influence over the Chinese world, from Hong Kong film studios to Macao casinos, of triads like Sun Yee On or 14K. They are taking advantage of the scale of the diaspora in Vancouver or Beijing’s current proximity to Cambodia and Burma, as part of the “new silk roads”, to extend their influence.

China’s economic opening at the turn of the 1980s gave a new boost to organized crime, from karaoke to counterfeiting. When Hong Kong rises up against Beijing’s control, the little hands of crime are there, on July 21, 2019, at the Yuen-Long metro station, to beat up the demonstrators.

In Taiwan, “White Wolf”, who spent his life climbing the ranks of the Bamboo Union, has become a politician in recent years, working for unification with China. The changing times worry Holger Chen, the repentant owner of fitness clubs in Taipei, who calls for demonstrations against pro-Beijing influence relays and miraculously survived the three bullets he was shot in 2020 while he was getting out of his vehicle.