Project Gutenberg builds its crime plot around a counterfeiter nobody in the Hong Kong police has ever actually seen.
What is Project Gutenberg about?
A counterfeiting operation run by a mastermind known only as Painter has stayed one step ahead of the Hong Kong police for years, its scale and precision suggesting a criminal network that few investigators believe they can crack. To finally get close, the police pull in Lee Man, a former member of the gang, and lean on what he knows to work toward exposing the man behind the operation. Director Felix Chong builds the 2018 film as a puzzle told mostly in retrospect, letting Lee Man's account shape how much the audience actually gets to see.
About the cast
Chow Yun-Fat and Aaron Kwok anchor the cast, with Zhang Jingchu, Dick Liu, Dmitry Mazurov and Jason Moehring in supporting roles across a story that spans several countries.
Context & significance
Project Gutenberg runs 130 minutes and sits across action, crime, mystery and thriller, a combination that gives Felix Chong room to stage large-scale set pieces alongside the slower interrogation scenes that drive the plot. The film is a China-Hong Kong co-production, a pairing common to the genre and one that shows in its scope and production scale. Its structure leans on the interrogation-room framing device to control what the audience learns and when, so the mystery around Painter's identity unfolds through what Lee Man chooses to reveal rather than through a straightforward chronological account. That framing gives the film's twists room to land without abandoning its crime-thriller backbone.
Watching Project Gutenberg on Ktime
Stream Project Gutenberg on K-Time with a free account login. K-Time is built for Persian-speaking viewers abroad, and the experience, from search to your personal watchlist, stays consistent whether you browse in Farsi or English.