Thrills on the streets of Hong Kong

10 April 2012

Hong Kong director Johnny To may not be a ground-breaking auteur like Wong Kar-Wai or even John Woo, but he makes thrillers that work better than most and, in so doing, transports us to a city that's very different from the one in the tourist brochures.

In this case, he cleverly films Hong Kong at night only, with streets full of rubbish and only the dives and small cafés open. Here a fat, chainsmoking police sergeant (Simon Yam) has his car vandalised, gets beaten up and has his gun stolen.

He has to find the revolver since no one will believe he let four young punks make off with it - the dishonour is too great. He enlists the aid of a maverick PTU (Police Tactical Unit) to find it before dawn, but also gets involved with two gangs about to orchestrate a bloodbath and has to stave off squads of Vice and Homicide units.

To takes a fairly cynical view of the Hong Kong forces of law and order, most of whom seem to be about as trustworthy as the criminals they chase. And he shoots with real authority (if not quite the bravura of last week's Exiled, set in Macao).

Even when you're not sure what is going on, he keeps you watching, and his cast act with a verisimilitude that can't be seriously criticised.

There's a darkly humorous edge to the director's work which prevents any pretension. In one great scene, the leader of the punks gets run through with a kitchen knife and, bleeding profusely, with the knife still in him, hails a taxi to get to hospital.

The driver, seeing the victim in the back seat, leaps out of his cab in terror. Whereupon the wounded man takes over at the wheel before finally succumbing to his injuries. The cabbie, it is revealed, is the one who gets treated in hospital.

PTU
Cert: 15

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