Bloody Friday
Director: Danny Ko Lam-pau
Year: 1996
Rating: 6.5
Aka - Friday Killer
A young woman is frantically running down a dark deserted alleyway (aren’t
they always?) – a look of terror distorting her lovely features. In the
distance the sound of a motorcycle revving its engine can be heard. Soon
it gets closer and closer as it swoops down on the helpless victim. She
dodges, she twists, she screams – but nothing can stop her inevitable demise
at the hands of this serial killer.
For weeks this killer has been preying on
hookers – but only on Friday nights (must be a bad night for TV?). Simon
Yam is put on the case, but nothing seems to work out right. A trap is set,
the bait is placed and the killer goes for it. Unfortunately, the HK police
have not been practicing their shooting lately and somehow over a hundred
of them manage to miss the killer on the motorcycle at close range. Pretty
silly – but if they hadn't it would have been a very short movie! There are
some really terrific mototcycle stunts and riding as the killer seems able
to go up or through just about anything.
Eventually, the killer begins playing games with Yam and sends him four
pictures. Yam is told that in those pictures are clues of the next targets.
If Yam is unable to stop the killings, then the fifth target will be a young
hooker, Loletta Lee, and after that Yam’s wife (Ada Choi) and his daughter. One
by one Yam fails to stop the killings and Loletta is next in line. There is
some tension and suspense created in some of the scenes – but it suffers from
that serial killer movie syndrome in which they always seem to know where
the victim is going to be or can seem to get in any place without being seen.
This tends to annoy me - I would love to see some film where the killer tries
to get into the detective's house to leave a threatening message – and just
can’t get in!
Both Simon and Loletta do nice jobs here
– Simon as an obsessed driven cop and Loletta as a flirtatious sexy vixen.
Ada in a much smaller role is fine as well. The ending somewhat destroys any believability
factor that may have emerged when the killer’s identity is finally revealed.
It’s also a fairly downbeat finish in true HK style, but for the most part
this film will hold your attention.
