Full-Time Killer
Reviewed by YTSL
For some people, a Milkyway Image film is not
really a Milkyway Image film unless it is a crime drama. However worthwhile
and/or entertaining they may be, comedies like “Needing You…”, “Help!!!”,
“Wu Yen” and “Love on a Diet”, a quiet romance like “Sealed with a Kiss”
and docu-dramas like “Spacked Out” and “Gimme, Gimme” aren’t what many fans
of this production house’s offerings truly look forward to viewing.
Consequently, although 2000 and 2001 have been years in which Johnnie To
and co. have achieved the most HKSAR box office success, those who majorly
admire those offerings which often starred Lau Ching Wan -- and involved
lots of exchanges of bullets -- have been waiting in vain for some time now
to be treated once again to the kind of testosterone-powered, explosive action
work that can be emotionally cathartic as well as dramatically satisfying.
That whose (tentative) Chinese title translates into English as “You and
Me” is a movie about two hit-men (played by Andy Lau and Takashi Sorimachi),
the woman whom they get triangularly involved with (who comes in the form
of Kelly Lin), and the Interpol team (led by an individual essayed by Simon
Yam) whose pursuit of them spans several Asian territories. Although
its English title suggests otherwise, there is more than one major claimant
to the FULL-TIME KILLER crown in this often tall tale; with Takashi Sorimachi’s
intense O – short for Ono – character being recognized, at the start of the
film, by underworld figures as the reigning king of assassins but his previously
undisputed top position within his field getting challenged by a flamboyantly
reckless upstart known only as Tok (and portrayed by Andy Lau). So
intent is Tok to not only topple but also meet and duel with O that the Chinese
man was willing to spend five years learning Japanese as well as effectively
stalk and corner the native Japanese speaker (whose chosen home base turned
out to be Hong Kong rather than the Land of the Rising Sun). O, on
the other hand, (initially) possessed no plans to get to know or near Tok,
or any other human being. Slowly but seeming inevitably though, the
two men’s paths cross and criss-cross. Furthermore, and along the way,
they find that they have more in common than just their chosen profession…
In his South China Morning Post review, Paul Fonoroff has hailed FULL-TIME
KILLER as being “in many ways…the best of…[Johnnie] To's trademark “macho
series””. Alternatively, not only did I not love this Andy Lau vanity
vehicle – it ought to be noted that, beyond this movie’s web site being “powered
by www.andylau.com, the Cantopop Sky King was this visually stylish effort’s
co-producer as well as lead (over-)actor -- much more than the likes of “A
Hero Never Dies”, “Expect the Unexpected” and “The Mission” but I also happen
to think that it is bereft of the darkness, depth and dramatic heft that
I found to be characteristic of the crime dramas that the Milkyway Image
folks used to put out in their pre 100 Years of Film days. As a matter
of fact, that which possesses the kind of unseemly – and seemingly invariable
shallow -- showiness that I happen to dislike quite a bit looks to be:
Less of a return to true nature and form for co-directors cum co-producers
Johnnie To and Wai Ka Fai than a commercialist harnessing of their considerable
talents to an Andy Lau bid to issue a flashy calling card, a la John Woo
and Chow Yun-Fat by way of “Hard Boiled”, to Hollywood.
The first signs of things not being as they ought to be for me came by way
of the FULL-TIME KILLER crew taking us rapidly from Malaysia to Thailand
– where the movie’s two main characters are shown coolly carrying out deadly
assignments -- and then to Japan, Singapore and South Korea rather than just
staying put in Hong Kong. Although I don’t consider it a “must” for
all Hong Kong movies to solely take place in the HKSAR, “international” action
productions are not – despite their seemingly thinking otherwise -- the forte
of the former British Crown Colony’s film folk. For one thing, not
enough time is spent in many of the locations to make it feel like they are
anything other than flatly uninteresting, inter-changeable landscapes.
For another, the international gallivanting around that occurs places big
linguistic demands on many of the actors and actresses that they are not
able to completely successfully fulfill.
With regards to the cast of FULL-TIME KILLER: It undoubtedly helped
Takashi Sorimachi’s cause that his O character was pretty much the only one
of the film’s key figures who got to speak the actor’s mother tongue for
the bulk of the movie. In contrast, Andy Lau’s performance suffered
considerably from his neither sounding particularly comfortable nor cool
when speaking English and Japanese (the two languages he spoke much more
than his native Cantonese, even when Tok was moving around in Hong Kong).
Also, while Simon Yam and Lam Suet’s English delivery was passable, both
of them did not possess the requisite “Singlish” accents that I’d imagine
that the real-life equivalents of their Singaporean Interpol agent and sleazebag
characters would possess. On a brighter note, Kelly Lin’s command of
Japanese as well as Mandarin allowed this (re)viewer to find her convincing
in her role as the Taiwanese woman named Qin who regularly worked at a Japanese
video store and earned extra money cleaning the apartment of a mysterious
Japanese man (whose life she found herself getting increasingly curious about).
Newcomer Cherrie Ying deserves credit too for appearing at home in her role
as the urbane Interpol agent who was Simon Yam’s character’s right hand (wo)man.
A couple of easy ways for FULL-TIME KILLER to
have been a better movie than it is could have come by way of Andy Lau being
given more Cantonese dialogue and less screen time. The likelihood is
equally high that a Raymond Wong score would have added considerably to this
work’s quality. I also would have liked to have seen fewer action scenes
in which O or Tok’s targets and opponents were mere hapless sitting ducks
who were no match for the master killer(s). What I personally missed
most about this offering though were: Well-developed characters – particular
female ones – whose actions I could understand, even if they weren’t ones
with which I could fully sympathize or empathize; and a realization that
even when one likes to treat much of life as just a game, the taking of human
lives is something that ought not be enacted all that lightly.
My rating for this film: 5.5
