The Masked Prosecutor
Director: Herman Yau
Year: 1993
Rating: 4.0
Herman Yau is probably the most prolific Hong Kong director of the past 30
years and certainly with the most variety. After spending his early years
in horror with Ebola Syndrome, Untold Story, Walk In and a slew of Troublesome
Night films - he moved on to serious dramas for years and lately he has been
able to move successfully into action films with Ip Man and White Storm films.
But he can be very hit or miss with his films - a sizable number of his 75
credits to this point are mediocre at best. Not that I have seen the majority
of them but films like Papa Loves You or Herbal Tea or Shark Busters are
pretty forgettable. This one is worse than forgettable - it feels like Yau
was asleep during it. A decent enough premise but executed in a dreary manner
with no energy. It is like watching a slug cross the road. The best part
of the film is during the opening credits when they show snippets of action
that never made it to the real film. Maybe budgetary limitations. But most
of the dull sheen falls on the shoulders of two of the three male leads -
Jordan 'Beijing Bootlicker' Chan and Louis Koo. Neither real favorites of
mine under the best of circumstances but here they look like they would rather
be anywhere else. Sort of how I felt.
A masked vigilante is going after criminals that were found not guilty by
the justice system. All this is shown during the opening credits weirdly
enough. But he is not killing them - instead he kidnaps them and whips their
naked buttocks for a few days and then dumps them in front of a police station.
Kind of perverse. Why the police actually care enough to set up a special
task force seems overkill as well. It's a spanking for heaven's sake. And
the victims are clearly low life scum. Heading up the task force is Wah (the
somnambulant monotone Jordan Chan) who recruits the reluctant Guy (Blackie
Ko - the only actor who looks like he isn't a walking zombie) to be his assistant.
Guy is nearing pension time and wants nothing to do with this. He is pro-whipping
vermin. In Singapore they do it for chewing gum.
But Wah has his reasons for this - he thinks that a friend and former police
officer of Guy's is the masked man. Tong (Louis Koo, who Guy describes as
looking barbecued - a joking reference to his perpetual tan) is this friend
and a few years previously as a cop killed a man who had surrendered and
had to go to jail. Since we see Koo in the opening credits it is no great
mystery. He is an unhappy boy and does a lot of moping. Wah thinks he is
a Sherlock Holmes genius because he can look at a blank wall and determine
that photographs used to be there. Because of the marks left behind. Pretty
impressive. Or at least enough to make Guy's cute daughter (Grace Yip) get
a crush on him. You keep expecting this film to break out into something
good or at least show a spark of life but it never really does. An idiotic
script and bad acting cannot make a Herman Yau film palatable.
