2002
Director: Wilson Yip
Year: 2001
Rating: 7.5
Hong Kong film fans
moaned and lamented in 2000 when Director Wilson Yip seemed to turn to the
dark side with his big budget CGI film Skyline Cruisers that had the emotional
and entertainment appeal of a chunk of concrete falling on your head. Until
then he had focused on smaller, more personal and edgier films such as Mongkok
Story, Bullets over Summer, Bio-Zombie and Juliet in Love that made him
one of the more interesting directors working in Hong Kong today. Well, he
is back again with a big budget CGI film – but this time thankfully he got
it mostly right.
Utilizing a mix of kooky CGI and frenetic action along with a dash of bittersweet
romance he creates an entertaining and endearing film that feels like a throwback
to those terrific supernatural action films of the 1980s in which anything
goes. In the realm of the supernatural there are no rules and that certainly
applies to this film that tosses logic aside in disdain and drags the viewer
happily along. Unlike many other HK films that have lost their soul to the
CGI God, Yip leaves enough space in between the action and the CGI for a strong
layer of sentiment to settle in and wrap itself around you. Yip also takes
the time to give the characters just enough substance and weight to make
you care but not slow down the film too much.
In a riff of their characters in Generation X-Cops, Nicholas Tse, Stephen
Fung and Sam Lee all join up again to fight the bad guys – the difference
is of course that the bad guys are already dead and are ghosts that have evil
intentions. They even have an Eric Tsang like mentor in the figure of Law
Kar-ying who oversees and advises them on supernatural matters and has some
Taoist priest like powers of his own. I’ve never been a huge fan of this
young threesome but rarely have they been so ingratiating. Nicholas Tse brings
out oodles of his promise in a very stylish turn in which his leather jacket
and well-placed bangs just scream out “cool”. In particular I have found
Fung to be as exciting as wet sod, but here he creates a very sympathetic
character that doesn’t have the pizzazz of Tse’s but it has a sweetness that
is attractive. Sam has a smaller role but his time is well spent in the film.
Some ghosts are often up to no good on the streets and roofs of Hong Kong
(while others harmlessly wander about) and Tse and Lee are in a special police
unit that tracks them down and takes them out of commission. Tse is human
but is able to see ghosts while Lee is actually Tse’s ex-partner who was killed
in a shootout and now assists Tse (as a ghost) in his police duties. The
fights are wild and crazy, bodies spinning through the air, nasty ghosts hissing,
flying and throwing fireballs, ghost weapons being used like vacuum pistols
with blood filled bullets and giant hammers from burnt offerings. It’s all
rather fun.
Later Tse discovers that patrol cop Fung can also see the dead and recruits
him only to find out that he is terrified of ghosts, but Law tells him that
Fung is essential to the team. We are soon to find out why. Soon they are
battling the Water Ghost (Alex Fong Nik-sum – another Alex Fong) and the salacious
Fire Ghost (Anya) for their lives. In the meantime Tse falls for the extremely
appealing Danielle Graham, but the mark on his hand foretells death for anyone
that gets too close to him - so he has to keep his distance. Fung tries to
find love with a comatose patient (Rain Li) whose dead grandmother's ghost
asked him to look after her. It all gets surprisingly tense and somewhat sad
as the character’s fates play out between life and death.
