A - 1
Director: Gordon
Chan
Year: 2004
Rating: 6.5
Aka - A-1 Headline
It is an intriguing film with a very good cast and with a plot that slowly
unfurls as a murder mystery that then turns more into a story about journalistic
integrity and police corruption. But as it leads you along a winding path,
the viewer will expect either a big twist at the end or a satisfying gotcha
ending to the mystery - and instead it is fairly deflating - and leaves some
questions on the table. But I quite enjoyed the slow pacing and performances
till then. Angelica Lee Sin-je was at the height of her popularity after
The Eye, Edison Chen was one of the new fresh young actors before his sex
scandal ruined him and hurt so many others (scumbag), Anthony Wong is great
as always and there is Eric Kot, Tony Leung Ka-fai and Gordon Lam as a solid
supporting group. It is an unusual sort of story from Hong Kong with no action
really, no romance, no big moments - it is a suspenseful narrative with little
excitement.
Elaine (Angelica) has just broken up with her boyfriend. Both work for a
newspaper with Terence (Tony Leung) as their editor. She learns that her
ex-boyfriend has died in a car crash and is devastated. At the same time,
two debt collectors are trying to get her to pay what she owes. These two
are played by Wong and Kot as probably the two nicest debt collectors ever
in a Hong Kong film. Usually, they are breaking fingers but these two - Fei
and Jai - just tell people to work harder. Elaine and the debt collectors
sort of bond - Wong's character Fei is in debt up to his eyeballs as well.
In fact, everyone seems to be deep in debt. They go with her to the scene
of the accident to burn incense and he says, this was no accident. He was
a cop until his debt problems forced him off the force.
His saying that gets Elaine to thinking and she starts investigating the
death of her boyfriend - he was working on a big story about the son of a
wealthy man who was having an affair with a model - who the police reported
was a suicide. Things don't add up. Edison is her assistant and gofer. Fei
has some affection for her - whether it is romantic or fatherly is hard to
say - and he begins to protect her from a distance. Which she needs. Someone
tries to kill her and someone shoots at Fei - and though most of the mystery
is resolved - not really satisfactorily admittedly - they seem to forget
about those incidents. Was it the wealthy son, the cops or what. Very odd
that no one making the film noticed this rather large hole. It is directed
by Gordon Chan who also wrote the script. Interesting looking back from today's
perspective, when police cannot really be depicted as corrupt and the independence
of the news as stoutly portrayed here is finished.
