Roy Chow
The story: A serial murderer is on the loose and in the high-rise building where his latest victim is found, the unconscious chief inspector of police Ling Kwong (Aaron Kwok) is also discovered. Ling eventually comes round but he has no memory of how he ended up at the scene of the crime. He starts to dig deeper into the case and finds that all the clues point to him as the murderer.
Welcome to Preposterous City, where the thrills are cheap and the roads are twisty.
The signs, though, point at first to an intriguing mystery where things are not as straightforward as they seem.
At the hospital where the comatose chief inspector Ling and the latest victim, another police officer, are sent, a scuffle breaks out among the waiting cops, suggesting that suspicion towards Ling was already mounting even before this latest strange turn of events.
As the distraught inspector seeks to clear his name, the noose slowly tightens around him. Among other things, he is unable to account for the fact that the murders took place on the days he was away from work.
There are shades of Memento (2000) in this movie’s device of an ambiguously shaded protagonist who is afflicted by amnesia. But Aaron Kwok is no Guy Pearce despite winning back-to-back Golden Horse statuettes for best actor in 2005 and 2006.
It is TV veteran Cheung Siu Fai who puts in a solid turn as Ling’s fellow officer Ghost, torn between trusting a friend and believing the evidence put before him.
But halfway through, the film abruptly veers off course. In the history of plot twists, the whopper unleashed here should rank comfortably in the top three. It will leave you flummoxed, bamboozled and flabbergasted.
The revelation also serves as the signal for Kwok to go into full-blown actor mode as a frustrated Ling is driven to the edge of madness when he is unable to convince anyone else of what he learns about the gory death-by-electric-drill murders.
Increasingly isolated and paranoid, his outwardly perfect life – a beautiful wife and an adopted son, a gorgeous seafront house and an upcoming promotion – begins to fall apart spectacularly.
To convey all this, Kwok mugs maniacally for the camera and seems in danger of popping a vein or two as he goes about in a bug-eyed rage.
In a way, Ling’s utter frustration makes sense because there is no one who will believe the cockamamie truth. The problem is, neither will the viewers.
In the unlikely event that you manage to swallow that whopper of a plot twist, there are other loopholes to contend with, such as the way the victims are linked and how Ling ends up with amnesia in the first place.
If the goal of screenwriter Christine To and first-time director Roy Chow was to frustrate and annoy the heck out of the audience, congratulations on a job well done.
At the hospital where the comatose chief inspector Ling and the latest victim, another police officer, are sent, a scuffle breaks out among the waiting cops, suggesting that suspicion towards Ling was already mounting even before this latest strange turn of events.
As the distraught inspector seeks to clear his name, the noose slowly tightens around him. Among other things, he is unable to account for the fact that the murders took place on the days he was away from work.
There are shades of Memento (2000) in this movie’s device of an ambiguously shaded protagonist who is afflicted by amnesia. But Aaron Kwok is no Guy Pearce despite winning back-to-back Golden Horse statuettes for best actor in 2005 and 2006.
It is TV veteran Cheung Siu Fai who puts in a solid turn as Ling’s fellow officer Ghost, torn between trusting a friend and believing the evidence put before him.
But halfway through, the film abruptly veers off course. In the history of plot twists, the whopper unleashed here should rank comfortably in the top three. It will leave you flummoxed, bamboozled and flabbergasted.
The revelation also serves as the signal for Kwok to go into full-blown actor mode as a frustrated Ling is driven to the edge of madness when he is unable to convince anyone else of what he learns about the gory death-by-electric-drill murders.
Increasingly isolated and paranoid, his outwardly perfect life – a beautiful wife and an adopted son, a gorgeous seafront house and an upcoming promotion – begins to fall apart spectacularly.
To convey all this, Kwok mugs maniacally for the camera and seems in danger of popping a vein or two as he goes about in a bug-eyed rage.
In a way, Ling’s utter frustration makes sense because there is no one who will believe the cockamamie truth. The problem is, neither will the viewers.
In the unlikely event that you manage to swallow that whopper of a plot twist, there are other loopholes to contend with, such as the way the victims are linked and how Ling ends up with amnesia in the first place.
If the goal of screenwriter Christine To and first-time director Roy Chow was to frustrate and annoy the heck out of the audience, congratulations on a job well done.
(ST)