Last night on Celestial Movies, there was a First and Exclusive premiere of new Hong Kong film that seemed interesting based on the synopsis available. As it has been a while since I saw a good quality movie on that channel (and because it was not released in Indonesian cinemas), I was intrigued to give it a try. Well I will go straight to it then.
Brief Story Line
When a jewelry store robber was found murdered, the gang leader Sean Wong (Louis Koo - Chasing the Dragon II: Wild Wild Bunch, The White Storm etc) became the primary suspect. Captain Yip (Philip Keung - Trivisa, Shock Wave etc) was adamant that Sean was guilty, hence he was very upset when his lead detective Larry Lam (Louis Cheung - L Storm etc) seemed to be less suspicious and focused on the only witness to the murder, a talking parrot.
As Sean was trying to prove his innocence, he had to look for various clues and stayed hidden in a rented house for old people managed by Joy Ting (Jessica Hsuan - The Kid from Big Apple etc). Meanwhile Larry and his partner Shao Mei (Cherry Ngan - The Way We Dance etc) were also trying to find out on the murder case which led them to other suspects.
So who would win in this game of cat and mouse and who was the actual murderer? Find them all in this action thriller movie.
End of Brief Story Line
This movie's early part was done in an interesting way that made me quite intrigued. The mystery surrounding the murder was actually not bad (even if the parrot thing seemed to be unclear at first). The story telling was pretty decent with some flash backs done to explain a bit more on what happened earlier. Good thing about the flash back scenes were they actually helped rather than making it confusing.
For an action thriller with mystery to solve, this one was quite OK. There were few actions involving Louis Koo (the anti hero in here) who showed his usual coolness like in his roles in the past few years. Meanwhile Louis Cheung was quite convincing as the rather "useless" gray-ish police detective with his own personal problem but trying to do the right thing. I also like the performance of Philip Keung as Captain Yip in here. Funny thing about Jessica Hsuan's character in here as I thought her relationship with Louis Koo was pretty similar with Chow Yun-Fat and Sally Yeh in John Woo's The Killer. In fact I think there seemed to be more than one similarity, not sure whether it was unintentional or actually inspired by that movie.
Aside from those names, there were few other supporting roles by Hong Kong's quite familiar faces (at least to me) such as Andy On (As the Light Goes Out, Special ID etc), Patrick Tam (Duke of Mount Deer 2000 TV series etc), Sam Lee, Fiona Sit (Two Wrongs Make a Right etc) and few others. Some also left a good impression to me.
One thing that I was not satisfied was the case resolution. OK the 1 fact that was found towards the end would explain 1 thing, however, I failed to see how it would explain the whole case. There seemed to be no correlation between that 1 fact and how the actual crime was committed. If there was a better explanation, I would have probably felt more satisfied by it. The ending itself was quite OK, not spectacular but there was a sense of beauty in it. Oh there was no mid or post end credit scene, just beautifully shot Hong Kong's night scenery which made me miss the city.
Overall this was a pretty standard action thriller movie. The mystery was interesting enough, with a solution that was kind of surprising but did not really blow mind and a quite predictable ending that seemed to be done just to satisfy audience. The cast performance were good and possibly the highlight of this movie with some really interesting characters. So if you are looking for a wonderfully crafted murder mystery movie, this might not be too fulfilling. While if you want to see a coolly done action thriller, this one was OK at best cause the only one looked good enough for me was the short robbery scene.
I understand this movie was quite critically acclaimed, however I would not say this as an amazing murder mystery film, though it could be considered as a good quality drama based on the casts performance. If you are interested with the movie due to critics's views, then by all means give it a try but if you expect more action or more sophisticated mystery, then this would probably be less rewarding.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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