05-02-2008, 03:51 PM
This is by Johnnie To, who brought us Heroic Trio. To has really come up. He won 11 notable HK film awards with PTU. Plus it stars Simon Yam, one of my favorite actors, but it was disappointing. It's a thin-blue-line/cop-code-of-honor flick. A cop loses his gun and his buddies cover up for him while trying to find it. The film captures the tropical oppressiveness of Hong Kong well, bugs in neon lights, tile and cement walls, a lot of smoke. Some one lights a cig in almost every scene. Even the guns in the final, and really only, battle, seem extra smoky. Yam turns in a solid performance as a Dirty-Harry-break-rules-to-nab-baddies cop. But ultimately, there are too many incongruities and the ending is so absurd. Not sure what all those awards were for - they were Golden Horse, three different HK Film groups, a French and Seattle festival. There was a pervasive moodiness, a nocturnal atmosphere of pulling a strung out allnighter, but ultimately, the plot just doesn't deliver. I really wanted to like this film.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse