In 2017, Hong Kong director Wang Jing launched her own masterpiece "Chasing the Dragon" to "wash away shame" and "revitalize Hong Kong films".
The film received rave reviews in the Chinese film industry, with critics commenting that Wang Jing had regained the sharpness of Hong Kong films in the 90s, while the audience was attracted by the protagonist, the handsome and domineering "Luo Ge".
Andy Lau plays the "Leiluo", nicknamed "Inspector 500 million", and his prototype is Inspector Lu Le, the chief of Hong Kong in the 60s.
Lu Le is a legendary figure in the history of Hong Kong, he is the head of the four major inspectors of Hong Kong, black and white, in the 70s with the Hong Kong police force embezzlement, personal wealth of hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars, you know at that time a bowl of noodles on the streets of Hong Kong was only 2 cents.
Lü Le later fled overseas in the 1970s, traveling to Canada and The island of Taiwan, living in mansions with hundreds of millions of dollars.
It was not until the great development of Hong Kong films in the 1990s that his story was put on the screen, and later it was remade many times, so that Lu Le's story spread across the Taiwan Straits and three places.
So, how did Lü Le become the king of the police world in the mid-20th century? Why did his original "One Corruption" mechanism operate safely without being discovered by the British government in Hong Kong?
Why has Lu Le not been punished after the Hong Kong government's anti-corruption campaign?
First, the darkness of the Hong Kong police circles was turned upside down by Lu Le
Since the 1990s, since the "Biography of Inspector Leiluo of 500 Million", Lü Le's name has been changed to "Leiluo", so that many people only know Leiluo and do not know Lü Le.
Lü Le was born in 1920 in Haifeng County, Shanwei, Guangdong Province, and his ancestors were fishermen for generations, and his ancestral home is still in Haifeng.
At that time, the mainland was a warlord melee, and it was very common for coastal areas to go to Hong Kong to survive, and Lü Le fled to Hong Kong with his family to make a living when he was young.
When he was young, Lu Le worked as a kind of handyman, washing dishes, polishing shoes, selling newspapers when he was a child, and when he grew up, he went to the streets to pull rickshaws to earn money.
In 1940, in order to have a stable income, Lu Le joined the Hong Kong Police Force.
Hong Kong people called the police "poor people", which was the same grade as the ancient servants, which was not a decent job at that time, and the salary was low and very tired.
But lu Le, a migrant like Lu Le, was hungry and fed, and the police could at least pay their salaries on time and eat enough, so he left the rickshaw and entered the police force.
The British colonial approach in Hong Kong was dominated by plundering economic interests, and as for social issues, they sought a "stable" word.
At that time, Hong Kong society was divided into three layers.
At the top are the Brits who live on the top of the mountain, travel in cars, and have almost no intersection with Hong Kong natives;
The middle level is the nobles and bureaucrats and compradors they support, and they connect with the British and directly rule Hong Kong;
At the bottom were the vast number of Chinese, and the compradors used the police to control Hong Kong society, fight crime, stabilize law and order, and protect the British colonial system.
In this ecological chain, the police have the lowest status, but the most important.
The British are hands-offs, the comprador class is incompetent, the police are doing hard work, but the income is very small, so they have to embezzle from the bottom to subsidize the family.
Early Hong Kong had a strong feudal color, and the police were not so much police officers as thugs.
Like gangsters, they collect rent from vendors, indiscriminately arrest suspects, and then let their families send benefits before releasing them, and the whole team is very decayed.
From 1940 to 1960, these 20 years were the period of development of the Hong Kong Police Force.
Lü Le started from the most basic patrol police, and was later transferred to the criminal police team, relying on solving cases and cracking down on gangster associations to promote, this plot is well restored in "The Biography of Inspector Leiluo".
Lü Le often dealt with gangsters in the 50s, and he knew that gangsters were also desperate people, especially immigrants from the mainland.
Therefore, he chose the principle of "suppressing and using it together", and the gangs agreed on three chapters of the law, delineated the bottom line for each other, and once they crossed the line, they would pay a price to each other, so that they could get political achievements and the gangs could survive in their own small corners.
As a Chaoshan native, Lü Le had a good relationship with New Nghe An, who was entrenched in the "Kowloon City Walled City" at that time.
The boss of New Ngee Ann is also a Chaoshan person, he and Lü Le have a lot of contacts, and anyone who has a new Ngee Ann makes trouble, Lü Le goes to the walled city to find Forward, and generally can be solved.
Because he can speak in the underworld, Lu Le's status in the police force has been continuously improved, and the British at that time liked this kind of person who could "do things peacefully", with high efficiency and low cost, so Lu Le was named by the British government in Hong Kong many times, and finally became a "Chinese inspector".
Second, police and bandit collusion, black and white, Lu Le let Hong Kong enter the "fake prosperity"
Speaking of which, the position of "inspector general" is difficult to correspond to in the police systems of other countries.
Hong Kong's inspector general is the leader of plainclothes police, a group of plainclothes but also armed with guns, specializing in managing entertainment venues at the bottom and pursuing criminal offenses, similar to criminal investigation teams.
In 1956, Lu Le came to prominence in dealing with gang clashes, and on October 10 of that year, on the "Double Tenth Festival", Kuomintang agents instigated gang members in Hong Kong to hold a commemorative event, resulting in clashes with the Hong Kong police.
Gang members set off fireworks and firecrackers while smashing and looting in the streets, forcing the British government to arrest hundreds of people to quell the riots.
Lu Le rushed into the battle in this event, with the help of new Ngee Ann to combat 14K, and was later praised by the Hong Kong Superintendent.
He was appointed "Inspector General" that year, and three years later, he was promoted to "Inspector General" in the New Territories.
After Lu Le became the chief inspector, there were two questions in front of him, the first was to give the police boss, that is, the British, and the second was to take dozens of hundreds of police brothers to eat.
But at that time, the salaries of the low-level policemen were very low, and everyone's life was very difficult.
In order to balance these two needs, Lü Le mobilized his own gangster background and began to negotiate secretly with the underworld.
At that time, the gangs made a living from "pornography, gambling and drugs", and the industries they occupied included dance halls, bars, casinos, and pornographic places, and the Hong Kong police often swept these locations and clashed with the gangs in order to complete the above tasks.
The gangs themselves are also fighting for land, and the streets of Hong Kong are full of swords and swords, and gunfire is constantly sounding.
After Lu Le came to power, he used his personal connections to almost open up the entire Hong Kong gang.
The leaders of the major gangs recognized him, some of the smaller leaders were his juniors, and Lu Le was in the middle of the gang and the police, and distributed their respective interests.
Hong Kong's economy was developing greatly at that time, but all the profits were taken away by foreigners, and the bottom life was difficult, and many people entered the gang to eat with mixed mouths, and Lu Le gave the gang a bite to eat.
He divided the gangsters' territory and did business with each other in their own territory, and the business could not be robbed, for example, the A gang had a casino here, and the B gang could not open another.
As long as there is no trouble, the police do not ask, and even help to take the wind.
In return, the police also have to share a part of the gang's profits, the more profitable the industry, the more they get, if there is no follow-up, they will sweep once every three days, or directly let the boss of the gang clean up the portal.
This policy is actually a compromise, but it does work in the short term.
Lu Le has been a detective for two years, the security in the New Territories has improved a lot, the gang fire has disappeared, petty theft has decreased, a small number of vicious crimes, the police can also go directly to the gang VIP, and the case solving rate has risen sharply.
This "prosperity" and "stability" made the British very happy, and Lu Le became a model in the police community.
In 1960, Lü Le also included the Kowloon District under his command, and from then on began a crazy wealth collection for more than a decade.
According to later accounts of the parties, there was not a single Hong Kong police officer at that time who was not corrupt.
Hong Kong Police Superintendent Han Tak in the 1970s recalled: "At that time, no one was clean, corruption was a way of life, not only our police were corrupt, doctors, civil servants, firefighters were all corrupt, which was as normal as eating and drinking." ”
Every time Lü Le received money from the underworld, he first kept a large portion, and the rest was sent to the sub-bureaus in several parts, and then the sub-bureaus themselves distributed to the police, according to the level of the position, but everyone had it.
In addition to collecting money from the underworld, Lü Le himself also holds the power of life and death, and some underworld people who want to buy and sell private liquor, human trafficking, and drug trafficking must first honor him personally, otherwise they will be harassed by the police.
He earned money with Yan Xiong, Lan Gang and Han Sen, who were collectively known as the "Four Inspectors" and became the emperor of Hong Kong in the 60s.
Third, Lü Le absconded with money, criticizing his biographical film as "blind shooting"
In the 1970s, Lu Le's private property became a mystery, when prices in Hong Kong were very low, a bowl of noodles on the street was two or three cents, a house in the city center was worth 20,000 yuan, and Lu Le's personal property was estimated to be hundreds of millions.
Hong Kong's "four inspectors" earn hundreds of yuan a month, but they send tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars to overseas remittances every month.
In addition, they also buy luxury houses, luxury cars and luxury goods in Hong Kong, and usually have a small feast every three days and a big feast on five days, living a fairy-like life.
The British are not unaware of the corruption of these inspectors, but the top brass of the Hong Kong Police Force is also part of the corruption, and the then superintendent "Gerber" also takes money from his subordinates every month, embezzling an average of 30,000 yuan per month in 70 years, a total of nearly 5 million Hong Kong dollars.
In 1973, when Gerber was sending money to Canada, he was detected by the Commonwealth Government for having too much cash flow, and his embezzlement was investigated.
According to british investigations, Gerber embezzled more than 4.7 million yuan, which can buy hundreds of houses in Hong Kong, which is shocking to Hong Kong people.
Soon, Hong Kong students and workers set off an anti-corruption demonstration, and the British government in Hong Kong, seeing that it had caused public resentment, immediately arrested Gerber for review and announced a thorough investigation of the police force.
Later, the Governor of Hong Kong established the Independent Commission Against Corruption to investigate corruption in the civil servants and police circles throughout Hong Kong.
When Gerber had problems, Lu Le, who had a keen sense of smell, immediately took his family and property with him to Canada.
According to statistics, his property left in Hong Kong was worth 100 million Hong Kong dollars, and the property transferred was still hundreds of millions, so the outside world rumored that he had 500 million Hong Kong dollars of property, and this amount of wealth could buy hundreds of millions of apartments in Hong Kong at that time.
Lü Le first fled to Canada, where he was supposed to be extradited by Hong Kong, and then he fled to Taiwan, where he bought a house and land, spent money to open up relations, and finally lived in Taiwan for a long time.
Since there were no extradition laws in Hong Kong and Taiwan at that time, Lu Le spent decades of his later years here in peace.
In his later years, he lived in a simple and simple house, living in a simple and low-key life, rarely socializing, and did not give a media interview until 2004.
A reporter asked Lü Le what he thought of his film and television image "Leiluo", and Lü Le said that he did not like it. Because the self in the movie is too snuggly at the beginning, and he still holds a hat and asks the vendor for bribes, isn't he like a beggar?
There is also his counterpart "Yan Tong" in the film, the prototype is Inspector "Yan Xiong", and Yan Xiong was just his little brother in the 60s, who was brought out by himself, how could he give him a dry face and pressure him?
Lu Le said that the movies were all "randomly filmed", and he said that Hong Kong at that time was not so chaotic, and the gangs were not so rampant, but the movie was exaggerated.
After Lu Le's interview leaked out, it aroused people's thinking about the anti-corruption campaign in Hong Kong in the 1970s.
There have been rumors that the so-called "anti-corruption" is a drama played by the British in order to crack down on the power of the Chinese at the bottom, and in the 60s when the "four inspectors" were seated, Hong Kong was very stable and the people's happiness was very high.
This argument was popular for some time, but then the British made a documentary documenting Hong Kong's anti-corruption struggle.
When they saw Lu Le partying in nightclubs in the 60s, spending 10,000 yuan a day, equivalent to the price of half a suite at that time, and Hong Kong civilians could not afford to eat 3 cents a bowl of wonton noodles, young people knew the darkness of that year.
As the "earth emperor" of the corrupt empire, Lü Le eventually spent his old age in Taiwan and later went to canada to live.
In 2010, at the age of 91, he died at a mansion in Canada.
Text/Shogakuno
Resources:
1. "How the Hong Kong Officials Are Purged", Ren Yu
2. "Analysis of Hong Kong Society in those years from two gangster movies- taking "The Biography of Inspector LeiLuo" and "Lame Hao" as examples, Zhu Tao