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Plot Outline: Undercover cop Ko Chow (Chow Yun Fat) is under serious pressure over his love life, his Job as an undercover police officer and his family life. He is haunted by an undercover job he pulled on a crime boss. Him and his girlfriend are on the brink of a breakup and his uncle is under more pressure then he is over the faults he has done in his job also. Then he is assigned infiltrate a gang of brutal robbers (Led by Danny Lee) while the nightmares and flashbacks of the other crime boss plague his mind. |
| The Review |
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Now that I’ve broken up the characters and some of the plot to you it’s time for the real review. The acting here is great, Chow is good in literally every scene he’s in, the first scene with him and his girlfriend at home is funny and pretty light hearted but it went on a bit long and the little bond got kinda weird, he’s charismatic without having too shoot guns and kill (Hundreds) of people. He also is kinda heartwarming also because he’s such a funny, nice individual that doesn’t like to hurt anyone (even the criminals). Danny Lee is also just as good as Chow, he takes his serious scenes and scenarios with a greater caliber then Chow does because Chow in most scenes with him is in pain from being shot. He’s also another one who doesn’t have to hurt anyone unless necessary. The direction is smooth, everything runs accordingly and the film doesn’t move at a slow pace nor a fast pace, Ringo Lams direction lets everything in one scene sink in before moving on to the next, he scene also gives the film a lot more drama and grit and you can’t help but wait til’ the conclusion of these events. The script is well written and the jokes are almost perfectly executed and the film also Isn‘t all-talk like other reviewers say, it has a lot of suspenseful and edge-of-your-seat moments with Chow trying to escape the two C.I.D officers. The jazzy score Isn’t half bad, it gives you a good feel of what’s going on and kinda evens things out. Especially in the ending. The violence is nothing like “Full Contact” or “Hard Boiled” there are three real scenes with some violence but this is one of those movies that can be called violent without taking it to extremes, there is no loss of blood in this when someone gets shot you see what happens instead of Ringo turning the camera way, especially one scene where a cop gets shot that gave me a jolt, the brutal violence goes well with the gloomy style of this film. One scene in a morgue works really well without using blood or gore but still sends a chill up your spine, another would be Chow’s constant nightmares of the other crime boss be betrayed and it gave me a creepier feeling to it, and last there is another scene in a graveyard where Chow’s foot gets stuck in an open grave that sent a chill up my spine because it totally comes out of nowhere. This film has some really, really negative points, it gets almost nihilistic and bleak. The violent conclusion also leaves you wanting more. In a good way, because you’d expect a character to live or something (Funny because I gave away no spoilers right there) but the end does hit you and it hits you good. But the film also has a light hearted theme the whole way through not a dark theme, which is good because a dark theme would have made this cheesy and a bit lame. There are a few minor mistakes and they’ll not bug you at all unless you’re a perfectionist, the scenes of the camera spanning the city streets obviously wasn’t set because everyone is staring at the camera and the subtitles on the DVD move a little quick.
Now when people say this got ripped off by Quentin Tarantino I can’t help but laugh at their spinning ignorance and laughing at what little things they know. This wasn’t ripped off, Reservoir Dogs was based more on an incident then a story, this has a story and characters, unlike Dogs which was then figuring out who was the rat in the pack. This was the complete buildup and conclusion of a story of a troubled cop and the introduction to the people who sent him on a constant downward spiral into doom. The only similarities to Reservoir Dogs is most of the scenes with Chow and the gang of bandits planning and showing the heist that went wrong. But there are a few character similarities, like one robber looks like an Asian Steve Buscemi and acted like Mr. Pink did also. Other then calling themselves by Mr. Like in Reservoir dogs they call on themselves as “Brothers”. Most of the violence and stuff in the end was taken into Reservoir dogs but it’s not what you really think it is.
| The Conclusion |
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