Zhì chi

A very dark and grim thriller filmed in black & white, mostly in the slums of Hong Kong. This movie is so atmospheric with a soundtrack that compliments it to perfection.

This really is one of the best thrillers I have ever seen. Emotions run high in this true masterpiece of a movie!

From the locations, to the camera work this film is a joy to look at. In Fact i say a big draw to this film is how it presents itself with the choice to make it black & white (even though it was filmed in color). A choice that really makes the location feel more filthy/chaotic and hard to find the finer details. The actors did a good job at playing their specific archetypes, with the woman serving the better performance.

The weaker parts are in the action and time. Some of the action feels goofy, especially when a gun is involved and not used or certain actions should be taken by the cops but they leave it unattended. Other scenes feel unneeded and could have been cut short and arrive at the same point at a concise time. Lucky the bad action bits are at the end and don't hurt it too much.

Two dim-witted, bad-tempered, violent cops - one of them with a toothache - run around the rubbish-strewn back alleys of Kwun Tong looking for a violent killer with some serious mental health issues. Some triads run up some stairs. Then they run down again. Among all this silliness, two street-tough young women are put through some deeply harrowing experiences. Yase Liu as Wong To gives by some distance the best performance in a story that provides very limited context or background to the characters. It all just about makes sense despite each character acting inexplicably to help move the plot along. But, hey, it all looks absolutely stunning. No HK film I've seen has looked this magnificent since Wong Kar Wai's heyday. 10/10 for the production design, 4/10 for everything else. Let's call it a 5.

The whole plot is ambiguous and out of focus. The lines between characters were cringy and stupid. It's supposed to be a crime thriller, but the directors made it about how to torture a woman until she can be forgiven. Noted that she already served her crime by admitting to jail. For some reasons, she was willingly destroyed and endangered herself so the cop will say forgive her. The characters kept contradicting themselves in their beliefs. There were also lack of logics such as trying to stop 7-8 men to beat up a woman by trying to yell at them, which lost the gun in the end. When confronted with a serial killer, one decided to go without a gun; when the killer was captured and passed out, the idiot cop put a gun in front of his chest resulting him opened fire. Make it make sense. Otherwise, the filming was good and cinematic. I give a 5 for that. 0 for the story and acting.

Hackneyed narrative that is mercifully saved by some visually inspired production design. The richly constructed look and feel of this film cannot be overstated. From the opening frame, One's senses are immediately assaulted, if not drowned, by the reek and penetrating decay of some saturated underbelly where these token, yet serviceable, characters aptly inhabit. The performances are as effective as the thin and woefully predictable writing will allow, but with as many highly-successful film-making paragons(Wilson Yip, Kin-ye Au, etc.) attached, one might expect a bit more. Nevertheless, the technical team and its bravura display of visual mastery more than successfully manage to compensate for the film's more than obvious weaknesses.