# Triangle (铁三角) (2007 film)
**Triangle** (鐵三角; also released as *The Iron Triangle*) is a 2007 Hong Kong crime thriller directed in relay by three leading Hong Kong filmmakers, [Tsui Hark](https://www.edgepedia.org/tsui-hark), Ringo Lam, and [Johnnie To](https://www.edgepedia.org/johnnie-to), each of whom shot one successive section of a single story about three friends who dig for buried treasure beneath the Legislative Council Building in Hong Kong.[1](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9896) • [2](https://www.bonafilm.cn/product/175.html) The film was screened at the 60th Cannes Film Festival and the 20th Tokyo International Film Festival.[3](https://kungfutube.info/22059)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Directors | Tsui Hark (opening), Ringo Lam (middle), Johnnie To (finale), each with his own scriptwriters and crew[4](https://fareastfilms.com/review/triangle/) • [5](https://www.scmp.com/article/613860/triangle) |
| Cast | Simon Yam, Louis Koo, Sun Honglei, Kelly Lin, Gordon Lam Ka-tung, Lam Suet[1](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9896) |
| Premise | Three friends under social, family, and financial pressure follow a mysterious old man's clue to treasure buried under the Legislative Council Building[2](https://www.bonafilm.cn/product/175.html) |
| Hong Kong release | 1 November 2007; category IIB; Cantonese and Putonghua[5](https://www.scmp.com/article/613860/triangle) |
| Festivals | 60th Cannes Film Festival; 20th Tokyo International Film Festival[3](https://kungfutube.info/22059) |
| Production studios | Media Asia, Film Workshop, Milkyway Image[6](https://musica.cinemasie.com/en/fiche/oeuvre/triangle/) |
| Reported runtimes | 90, 93, 100, 101, or 103 minutes depending on the source[1](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9896) • [7](https://www.screendaily.com/triangle-tit-samgok/4032600.article) • [2](https://www.bonafilm.cn/product/175.html) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Three friends worn down by social, family, and financial pressure, Sam ([Simon Yam](https://www.edgepedia.org/simon-yam)), Fai ([Louis Koo](https://www.edgepedia.org/louis-koo)), and Mok (Sun Honglei), meet in a bar to complain about their lives and discuss how to change them.[2](https://www.bonafilm.cn/product/175.html) • [9](https://asianwiki.com/Triangle_%282007-Hong_Kong%29) A mysterious old man appears and leaves a clue to an ancient treasure buried beneath the Legislative Council Building.[9](https://asianwiki.com/Triangle_%282007-Hong_Kong%29) After news reports confirm the old man's death, the three decide to dig for it.[3](https://kungfutube.info/22059) What they find is a prehistoric corpse clad in a pure gold outer garment, a priceless national treasure.[3](https://kungfutube.info/22059)
As they try to sell it, plainclothes detective Wen (Gordon Lam) closes in; he is the lover of Sam's wife (Kelly Lin), and she leaks the plan to him.[2](https://www.bonafilm.cn/product/175.html) • [3](https://kungfutube.info/22059) A succession of strange events follows, and the newly arriving characters and factions become trapped in a deadly struggle over the treasure.[2](https://www.bonafilm.cn/product/175.html) MoMA's synopsis adds a rural amphetamine addict played by To regular Lam Suet among the outside forces testing the friends' loyalty.[1](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9896)
## The relay concept
The three directors each filmed one part of a single continuous thriller, not a portmanteau of separate stories.[7](https://www.screendaily.com/triangle-tit-samgok/4032600.article) • [4](https://fareastfilms.com/review/triangle/) Each worked with his own team of scriptwriters, and, according to a press-conference report, none of the three knew the others' specific plans in advance; each director picked up the story from the previous one and continued it by following the characters' established personalities.[5](https://www.scmp.com/article/613860/triangle) • [8](https://news.sohu.com/20070322/n248886821.shtml) Tsui Hark opened the film, Ringo Lam took the middle section, and Johnnie To directed the finale, with each segment roughly 30 minutes long.[4](https://fareastfilms.com/review/triangle/)
The [Museum of Modern Art](https://www.edgepedia.org/museum-of-modern-art) described the result as a cinematic extension of the Surrealists' "exquisite corpse" game, in which each director worked independently with his own writers and technical crews and brought a distinctive style to his segment: Tsui's operatic energy, Lam's claustrophobic realism, and To's meticulous compositions and dry wit.[1](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9896) The *South China Morning Post* noted that the film gives no explicit signals of where one director's work ends and another begins, but that Hong Kong audiences could identify the transitions because each portion carries its creator's style.[5](https://www.scmp.com/article/613860/triangle)
## Style and structure
A Chinese film-site appreciation describes the film's structure as Tsui Hark setting up the situation, Ringo Lam disrupting it, and Johnnie To resolving it.[10](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/57771/guided/) In that account, Tsui's opening builds a dark fable with rapid cutting and ominous imagery, including the mysterious death of an antique dealer and fragments of a gold-threaded jade burial suit; Lam's middle section sinks into psychology, including a scene in which Yam's character drapes the gold garment over his dead wife and dances to an old record; and To's finale returns to the Milkyway Image black-comedy universe, with six armed factions facing off in a cramped riverside food stall under flickering lights, staged with overhead shots recalling his film *PTU*.[10](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/57771/guided/)
The same appreciation reads the gold garment as a [MacGuffin](https://www.edgepedia.org/macguffin) that refracts the characters' natures, with each figure alternating between hunter and hunted as police, gang bosses, wife, lover, creditor, and gambler converge on the treasure, and notes anti-genre touches such as a comic hiccup inserted into a rain-night standoff between a policeman and a gang boss.[10](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/57771/guided/)
## Reception
Rotten Tomatoes' critics consensus called it a "semi-comic-action thriller" that "teams three leading Hong Kong directors together with confusing results."[11](https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~shreyakamath/rottenHTML/Triangle_.html) The official film site recorded a Tomatometer score of 55 percent and an audience score of 44 percent.[12](https://www.trianglethemovie.com/) Xan Brooks of *The Guardian* compared the film to pass-the-parcel and blamed Tsui's opening segment for leaving "a knot of endless, fiendish subplots" for his successors to unpick, while concluding that genre devotees would relish contrasting the three directors' styles.[12](https://www.trianglethemovie.com/) Paul Fonoroff of the *South China Morning Post* called the collaboration "at times a chaotic mess, but executed with such technical skill and dark humour that the absurdities force even a severe critic to suspend any disbelief," and judged Tsui's opening the most muddled section.[5](https://www.scmp.com/article/613860/triangle)
LoveHKFilm's review took a similar line: the film "fails as a standard film, but succeeds as a self-indulgent cinema experiment," an interesting experiment and a must for die-hard Hong Kong cinema fans but a questionable success for general audiences.[13](https://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews_2/triangle.htm) A *Screen* review described it as "not so much a portmanteau film as a cinematic relay race."[7](https://www.screendaily.com/triangle-tit-samgok/4032600.article)
## Context in Hong Kong cinema
The film appeared when Hong Kong output had fallen sharply; an Electric Sheep review noted that fewer than 50 Hong Kong films were made in the year before release, against roughly 200 a year in the 1990s, and suggested Triangle might help revive the industry's dynamism.[14](https://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/reviews/2008/09/01/triangle/) A scholarly account of Media Asia lists *Triangle* among the action-crime titles, alongside the *Infernal Affairs* trilogy and *The Warlords*, that embodied the company's global multimedia image while remaining rooted in local culture and film convention.[15](https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/350770/1/X.Xu_20PhD_20Thesis_202012.pdf) MoMA screened the film in 2024 in a 35mm print courtesy of Magnolia Pictures as part of its series on Johnnie To.[1](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9896)
## References
1. [Triangle (鐵三角). 2007. Directed by Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, Johnnie To, MoMA](https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/9896)
2. [铁三角, 博纳影业集团 (Bona Film Group)](https://www.bonafilm.cn/product/175.html)
3. [強奪のトライアングル／鐵三角（2007）, KUNGFU TUBE](https://kungfutube.info/22059)
4. [Triangle (2007) Review, Far East Films](https://fareastfilms.com/review/triangle/)
5. [Triangle, South China Morning Post (Paul Fonoroff, 1 November 2007)](https://www.scmp.com/article/613860/triangle)
6. [Triangle, CinemaSiE](https://musica.cinemasie.com/en/fiche/oeuvre/triangle/)
7. [Triangle (Tit Samgok), Screen (Lee Marshall, 18 May 2007)](https://www.screendaily.com/triangle-tit-samgok/4032600.article)
8. [史上最牛"铁三角"(图), 搜狐新闻 (22 March 2007)](https://news.sohu.com/20070322/n248886821.shtml)
9. [Triangle (2007-Hong Kong), AsianWiki](https://asianwiki.com/Triangle_%282007-Hong_Kong%29)
10. [铁三角 导赏, 1905电影网](https://www.1905.com/mdb/film/57771/guided/)
11. [Triangle (Tie saam gok) (2007), Rotten Tomatoes](https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~shreyakamath/rottenHTML/Triangle_.html)
12. [Triangle The Movie (official site, archived)](https://www.trianglethemovie.com/)
13. [Triangle (鐵三角) (2007), LoveHKFilm](https://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews_2/triangle.htm)
14. [TRIANGLE, Electric Sheep](https://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/reviews/2008/09/01/triangle/)
15. [X. Xu, PhD thesis on Media Asia and Hong Kong cinema, University of Southampton](https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/350770/1/X.Xu_20PhD_20Thesis_202012.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 2005–2009 films › Released 2005 to 2007*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license